Sons of the Light
by anagke
Summary: Cooperation and conflict between Crowley's two star pupils release the evil into the manor. Hopefully enjoyable regardless of whether or not you have played Uninvited. 6 of 7 chapters uploaded.
1. Hawk

Sons of the Light Chapter 1 Sons of the Light 

Author's Notes:  
1) SotL is an Uninvited fanfic. Probably no one will remember or even have played this old game, but it was my very first computer game and it inspired me to write some fiction way back when. So I'm reviving the old gal. The story concerns the struggle between Crowley's students that leads to the mansion becoming haunted and the forging of Dracan's star. It does take a lot of liberties (because, well, Uninvited didn't have much of a plot anyway). Apologies for the denseness/philosophical bent of the material so early on...it's justified by the rest of the story and by the game.  
2) Uninvited and all therein belong to ICOM, which now as I understand it belongs to some other company. Basically, whatever comes from the game does not belong to me.  
3) Rated PG-13 because I suppose the general ambiance may offend, but you won't go blind if you read it. The story does make references to a rather occult interpretation of religion (not Christianity per se) that may not be everyone's cup of tea. Said influence was put in only because I felt it added depth to the story, explained the existence of magic a little more, and most importantly explained the religious elements (such as the chapel) in the game. It is not my intent to proselytize or mock anyone's beliefs. Bear that in mind before you flame me.  
4) FYI, the manor appears to be based on Boleskine House, the one-time residence of real-life "evil magician" Aleister Crowley (if you could have guessed this, you're as strange as I am). Since I wanted to keep this piece entirely fictional, I ignored the reference. The Crowley in the story, like in the game, is an entirely different, made-up person.  
5) Please be courteous and review; I return the favor. I am very interested in hearing constructive criticism and ideas for improvement. Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Hawk

July, 1856  
          Dim late-afternoon light filtered in through the chapel's stained-glass windows to splash rainbows across the smooth oak of the altar. The old man knelt with an obvious effort, momentarily pausing to study the chapel. The dark eyes that searched the room, although webbed with wrinkles at the corners, seemed to miss nothing, piercing in their sharp intelligence. Built to resemble an ordinary, if small, Scottish church, the chamber was entirely lacking in most of the expected trappings. The altar was bare of cross or idol, and instead of gods or saints the windows depicted vaguely meaningful patterns of shifting colors. All save for the largest, which bore the image of a five-pointed star set within a striated spectrum.   
          Finally, Crowley dropped his gaze back to the arthritic, thin-boned hands resting on the edge of the altar. Drawing a deep breath, he prepared to enter the meditative state that the Art demanded. The old man's breathing had just slowed to the relaxed rhythm of a light trance when the vision hit in a swirl of color and sensation.   
          _A hawk and a dragon struggle in the skies, fighting over a brass star clutched in the talons of the hawk. The dragon scores the hawk grievously and snatches away the prize. In the moment of triumph, however, the same wounds appear on the dragon, and both fall together. Their blood splashes onto me and burns like ice. The star lands in my outstretched hands, and I cannot look away. I am frozen, forever. The shadow consumes me._  
          Gradually, Crowley's consciousness floated back to the present. Twinges of pain in his hands returned him fully to reality. Arthritic joints gripped the altar tightly, knuckles sharp white blades against the papery skin. His head, pounding with the dull ache that always followed prescient visions, rested on the polished wood. Crowley's lined cheeks felt warm and damp with tears he could not remember shedding. Normally, the old man prided himself on his discipline and control, but to forsee your own death—that was rattling. Finally, he forced his head back upright, dark eyes wide. _What in God's name...?_  
          How long had he been lost in trance after the vision? Crowley wondered. Hours? It was dark, now, and the chapel was unlit and oppressive around his still-trembling form. With an idle mutter of _"spearca, abraxas,"_ Crowley summoned tiny sparks that took to the two candelabras beside the altar. The shadows retreated as the flames flared to life, illuminating a pale and shaken old man, dressed for travel in a dark suit and hat.  
          _I can't stop to think now,_ Crowley reminded himself sternly. _I am late already. Regardless of what happens to me, the Brotherhood needs me. _Several more deep breaths were needed before Crowley again regained that center of calm—the same trance that had triggered the vision. From here he could touch the power within, weaving it into recognizable ancient patterns with thought, a muttered incantation, and brief gestures etched with fingertips.  
          _"Foris, abraxas!"_ was the final, forceful mutter. Beside the altar, a horizontal slash of light cut into the chapel's still air, unfolding into a large, glowing rectangle. Crowley nodded to himself in satisfaction. Beyond the portal shimmered a nondescript, rain-swept dark alley, just barely visible through the radiance. The old man stood with the help of his cane and stepped through, confident as only a man accustomed to this kind of travel could be.

          They arrived only after sunset, almost all of them alone and all of them the same--dark-suited, stern-faced, casting worried glances over shoulders before approaching the deceivingly ordinary door. Stiffness in the sets of spines, shoulders, and necks spoke of great tension. The ever-present rain descended in a fine mist around horse-drawn carriages as the men climbed down before the unmarked London flat.  
          The last arrival swung down from the taxi with an effort, supporting himself with a silver-tipped walking cane. Light from the wrought-iron gas streetlamps illuminated the hard-planed, hawk-nosed face of an aging English gentleman, his nondescript dark hair streaked with silver wings at the temples beneath a stylish felt hat. This was the only face he wanted anyone to see, at least in this time and place.  
          In contrast to its drab exterior, the inside of the flat was pure luxury. The thick wine-and-blue Persian carpet piled lush and soft beneath Crowley's feet. Other well-dressed, sober-faced men lounged on silk-upholstered sofas, surrounded by marble replicas of classical statuary. From a stand in one corner, a musically-inclined servant filled the room with the strains of a violin melody. J.S. Bach, Crowley thought, Concerto Number One in A minor. Another young man circled the group with a tray of wineglasses. Father Michaels had arranged for the finest of comforts to soften this unpleasant duty.  
          The men, twelve in all, stood out of respect as Crowley entered. He was not the eldest of them, but he remained the strongest, and they had chosen him as a leader of sorts. Twelve pale, tense faces observed in silence as Crowley nodded greetings. He allowed his disguise to dissolve with a brief negating word. Now, the observer--were any allowed at these secretive meetings--would see a far different man in Crowley's place—older, not quite so straight, with the barest fringe of silvery-white hair framing the dome of a bald pate. The shape of eyes and features now marked him as having some Asian ancestry, quite out of place on a run-down London street.   
          It was impolite to maintain illusions among one's brethren. Besides, all of the men present could already see through his magical deceptions, just as Crowley could see through theirs. As for the servants, they were of no importance. Someone would ensure that they did not remember this evening.  
          "Crowley." A heavy-set, red-bearded man nodded a brief greeting and lifted the wineglass he'd just accepted. His accent spoke of birth and rearing somewhere near Dublin. "We have waited."  
          "I was detained." Crowley—it was not his real name, of course, but it served him here in this new place—handed his heavy, wet black wool coat and hat to the waiting servant. "I had a vision. It was…momentarily distracting."  
          Johan, slim and blond and appearing to all but disappear into the big corner armchair, cocked his head slightly. "A vision?" Several other men also turned renewed attention on Crowley. Guidance--from any source--would have been welcome in these uncertain times.   
          Crowley shook his head to clear the residual image from his mind. "It is of no importance. It referred to myself alone, not to us, Brothers. I will set it aside so that we may speak of more pressing concerns."  
          "Shall we begin, then?" At Crowley's nod, doddering-looking but sharp-eyed old Father Michaels bowed his head to intone the traditional blessing. He was not the only out-of-frock cleric among them, but he was the most pious, at least. "Lord, look down upon us in your wisdom and bless that which we do tonight…"  
          Crowley's mind wandered even as his lips moved by rote. He was not a religious man, not in Michaels' sense at least, but the ritual was comfortingly familiar. _Visions _suggest_ futures, they do not foretell them. The key to averting my death must lie in the imagery. The brass star is the pentagram, of course. It is power, magic, the ultimate mystery, the Art itself. Blood…ice…shadow…it does not bode well. It is a terrible thing, what we must do tonight, and its repercussions will stretch for centuries if it is not done correctly. Perhaps that is what I foresaw. Perhaps I will be caught in my own traps, regardless._ Thin lips twitched humorlessly. _It serves me right, if so. I have lived for far too long, strayed too far from my original course. But the hawk, the dragon, who—?_  
          Crowley opened his eyes to study the circle of faces. None of these pale shadows of former power seemed to fit into his vision. Now that disguises had dropped away, they were universally old, drawn, tired. This was the twilight of the Brotherhood, and their magic was at its weakest. Crowley did not deserve to be first and finest among them, yet such he was.   
          "Amen," Michaels murmured, and the rest echoed complacently. All eyes returned to Crowley's strained face. He stared back curiously for a moment longer. The comforting routine of the blessing, probably their last together, had left more than one with tears standing in his eyes.  
          The old man used the cane to lever himself to his feet with an effort. He felt like pacing.  
          "All of us have read the stars, gentlemen. We know what must be done." Crowley bit back a sigh. "We knew this day would come. We have grown weak, and the world has grown strong, apart from us. There is no place for the Art anymore, not in the royal courts, not in the sciences."  
          al-Razi stirred, face pale beneath his olive complexion. "But why should we destroy the good with the bad, Brother Crowley? The stars do tell us that to continue our current path would be disastrous, true—no one misunderstands the significance of Mars in the Fifth House, opposing Saturn. But if the Brotherhood…_adapted…"_  
          Paraseius snorted, heavy white sideburns almost bristling with irascibility as always. "Shall we become as some of the other old fool 'occult temples', playing at secrets and gathering for no purpose? We have always served mankind, Brother. If we must end that service, then the Brotherhood ends with us."  
          "Who concurs?" Crowley interjected quietly.  
          One by one, lowered heads and grimly set mouths communicated unanimous agreement. Ibrahim al-Razi was the last to bow his head in acquiescence, but the pact was made when he finally did. The old man's heart sunk until he wanted to join Michaels in tears, but a leader could not afford such weakness. Crowley craved some objection, some challenge to force them to rethink their plans. The Brotherhood was ancient beyond ancient, the oldest of the world's mystical orders. For centuries they had been the wise men, the advisors to kings, the astrologers, the researchers and philosophers. _The world has truly grown beyond us as it enters this new age of reason. Now we are just old men with no purpose._ It had been years since they had served their role of providing guidance to the rulers of Europe. The Brotherhood had been forgotten.  
          "So be it," Crowley noted grimly. "Upon the next full moon, the Brotherhood is no more. Go your own separate ways, gentlemen, and be careful who and what you teach. Remember what all the oracles and charts have told us. Reconstruction of our sacred purpose would be disastrous. No, forgive me." Crowley nodded apologetically to the servant, declining the offered wineglass. "I will return for the conversation…later, perhaps. It is immense, what we have just done, and I must take a walk."

          "Spare a coin, guv'nor? A penny?"  
          Crowley glanced down curiously at the young boy propped up against the lamppost, sandy-brown hair damp from the light drizzle. He was about twelve or so, his legs atrophied and obviously useless. An accident at birth, the man's trained eye noted, that had damaged the spine. Absently, Crowley fished a shilling out of his coat pocket and tossed it into the boy's cupped hands.  
          "Thank you, sir!" Pleased smile faded to a curious look as he cocked his head, dark eyes large in a thin face. He was not an attractive child, with his prominent ears, his nose a touch too wide, and the crooked teeth of the poor. "Hey, I've never seen a China-man before. I thought you was English at first."  
          Crowley, already past the beggar, stopped so quickly that his cane skittered across the cobblestones, nearly tripping him. A quick study of hands held before his face verified that the disguise was still intact. They were strong and square, not fragile and knobby with arthritis. The child had seen through the magic effortlessly. That took rare talent.  
          Occasional wild power manifested at odd moments in some few people, almost always suppressed and forgotten by adulthood. The potential for magic ran wild and fierce, but burned out quickly if it were not fed by study and discipline.  
          _Let him forget,_ Crowley advised himself. _The Brotherhood is no more._ But, then, guilt knifed into him. _Such great potential, to be wasted in the pointless life of a crippled street beggar. The Brotherhood will not end until the next full moon. Until then, we continue our normal routines…routines which include the selection of apprentices…_  
          It was highly unethical, he knew that. Yet the old man found himself turning and striding back to where the beggar watched somewhat nervously. Unable to get away or fight back, the boy had probably been at the mercy of random cruelty before.  
          "I didn't mean nothin'," the small figure muttered defensively, scooting away a bit. The narrow back bumped up against he cold, wet metal lamppost, causing him to flinch away. "Honestly, sir. I was just curious, is all."  
          Joints complaining, Crowley squatted, his face inches from the boy's. The wide brown eyes betrayed no fear—that was not courage in them, but instead the fatalism of one who has no future and thus no life to fear losing.  
          "I am Korean, not Chinese. Your name, boy?"  
          The other looked somewhat disappointed by Crowley's Scottish accent, perhaps expecting some exotic Oriental language. The old man had lived in these cold isles, exiled from his homeland, for more years than a child could imagine, and he spoke English as well as a native. Crowley bit back a smile, maintaining his severe expression—on whatever face the boy saw. "Jack, sir."  
          "How would you like to come and work for me?"  
          A bitter twist to his lips betrayed the residue of pride in him, though he still looked slightly nervous. "I can't work, guv'nor. I want to, but I can't. My legs, they don't…"  
          Crowley shushed him with an impatient gesture. "You can't walk," he noted, "but how would you like to fly?"

          As Crowley stepped through the portal, Jack's eyes widened in terror and his hands gripped white-knuckled at the arms of the wheelchair—purchased from a London hospital after Jack's enlistment. Once again, the magician found himself in the old manor chapel, which was where he began most of his travels. Bravely, though, Jack made no complaint. Instead, _"Crikey!_ You weren't lyin', were you, Mister—"  
          "Crowley."  
          "How did we get from the alley to this church? And, uh, where are we?"  
          "Scotland, near Loch Ness. In time, all will be explained." Crowley smiled. "For now, we will settle you into your new home."  
          Beyond the beautiful old chapel doors, the yard spread out green and well-maintained, broken only by the dome of the Magisterium and the looming brick walls of the huge manor. Jack remained silent and pensive as Crowley struggled with the chair. Recognizing the boy's uneasiness, he began to speak. "To your right is the garden. Ahead you see the Magisterium. That is the building where I conduct my research, and it need not concern you for some time. You can see the house on the left."  
          "Bloody hell!" Jack breathed, then blushed. "Uh, sorry. It's a flippin' mansion, that is. You _really_ live here?"  
          Towering three stories, the manor house had stood for centuries even before Crowley's arrival in Scotland. It had been repaired and even rebuilt many times, of course, but always the foundation remained. The manor was a place of such ancient magic that Crowley could not imagine studying the Art anywhere else. He wheeled Jack down the approaching path, still aware of the child's acute uncertainty.  
          "There's a town down there," Jack noted, indicating the houses at the foot of the hill. The roofs were just visible over the forbidding height of stone wall that closed off the manor grounds.  
          "A village, yes. In the Middle Ages they were serfs, serving the manor. Now they mostly own their own land."  
          He paused for a moment as they approached the door, to catch his breath. Once the boy was rested and fed, he should be strong enough to push himself; Crowley was far older than even he would admit, and unused to physical exertion. "You got a lot of servants here, sir?" the boy ventured hesitantly.  
          "One…McClellan. You'll meet him shortly."  
          Jack fidgeted, obviously agitated. "Mr. Crowley, givin' me a job here is real nice of you, but there ain't much I can do even in this chair. I don't know about all this talk of flyin'. I still can't walk." Basic honesty had prompted that admission, but the thin face was tormented. Jack obviously did not _want_ to return futureless and friendless to the streets of London.  
          "I don't need another servant. McClellan manages well enough. You are to be a student."  
          Jack's face screwed up with confusion and mild distaste at the word. "Student of what, sir?"  
          "What do you think?"  
          The boy was not stupid. "You mean…what you did with your face and with the glowing door between the church and…" He trailed off, overwhelmed. "What makes you think I can do _that?_ I can't even read or write."  
          "Reading can be learned. And you have the potential. I was not joking when I asked you to fly. You will see. For now—" Crowley had wheeled in through the back door and the main hallway, into the foyer, and the boy gave an appreciative gasp at the fine furnishings. "—you will rest and eat."  
          McClellan had begun a fire in the hearth, anticipating Crowley's arrival. The flames shed flickering light over the heavy marble mantelpiece and thick silk rug and granted a comfortable ambiance to an otherwise elegant room. Heavy, velvet-upholstered chairs and sofa, all standing on carved hardwood legs, had been carefully selected and arranged to harmonize the effect of the original large works of oil and canvas on the walls. Crowley had never been a believer in asceticism.  
          Drawn by the noise, McClellan loomed in the kitchen doorway, wiping off his hands with a towel. He smelled of turkey, which, from the sudden muted growl of stomach, the starving boy obviously noted. "So you're back, Master Crowley. And—?" the heavyset young man cocked a curious eyebrow at Jack.  
          "Ian, young Jack here will be joining us for a time. Prepare the guest room on the ground floor. I suspect he's quite hungry, as well."  
          Three hours later, Jack had been duly stuffed with turkey, fresh bread, and greens—probably the first full hot meal the boy had ever eaten. McClellan wheeled him into the library, where the master of the house waited, a large old book spread out on the table before him.  
          Jack eyed it nervously, gaze jumping between the tome, the full bookshelves lining the three other walls, and the astrological charts above. Doubtless the entire room was an alien sight to the boy. By far the oldest and most powerful thing in the house, the huge leather tome had been passed down to Crowley from the man who'd taught him. Every Master of the Brotherhood had a similar grimoire or two in his lineage. The cover's only marking was the pentagram burned into the gold-trimmed white leather, the symbol typically used to identify grimoires. While Jack could not have understood the significance of a genuine tome of magic, the boy was surely sensitive enough to pick up the emanations of power.   
          "I told you before, Master Crowley"—respectfully, the youngster had picked up on McClellan's form of address—"I can't read."  
          "We will study together, you and I." _For as long a time as we have._ "You will learn two types of reading here, letters and symbols. These are symbols, and they are…easier." Crowley pointed at one of the most prominent sigils on the first page. "This here, boy, means _'abraxas'_. This is the word of power we use to seal all of our spells. Observe."   
          The old man absently pointed, not even bothering to look. Surprised, Jack's gaze followed the finger to the sculpted seaman's bust on a marble pedestal just outside the open door. _"Specan heafod, abraxas."_  
          _"The door is open,"_ the bust announced in a sepulchral voice, marble lips moving stiffly with the magic. _"The storm approaches."_  
          Jack gasped. Crowley paused, momentarily startled despite himself, though for a far different reason.  
          One of the simplest, the spell merely redirected the caster's thoughts to the nearest human-shaped object. A small amount of telekinetic control allowed the simulacrum to speak whatever was prominent in one's subconscious mind. Often, its reply was couched in the form of a riddle, which made the spell an excellent tool for self-awareness. Disturbed by the message, Crowley decided that he needed time to meditate on its meaning. For now, however, the boy demanded his attention more urgently. "Now you try, boy. You remember the words?"  
          Eagerly, Jack mimicked Crowley's gesture. _"Speckan. Hey-a-fod. Abraxas."_ When nothing happened, the small face fell.  
          Crowley smiled. "I never claimed that this was easy. Successful spells require many things—correct pronunciation, visualization, training, focus. You will learn all of them, in time." _Lord, let there only be enough time…_ "Let's look at the symbols for the spell you just saw."  
          Jack leaned close, fascinated despite himself by the alien mysteries and secrecy of this place. Crowley held back a smile. _Time enough, I hope, for you to learn, little hawk. I am counting on you to become the Master before the dragon comes. Before the storm approaches with the door open._

          "It is what you've done," Father Michaels confided. Expression troubled, he accepted another teacup from the stoic McClellan. "The Brothers—forgive me, the others—are angry, confused. You yourself warned us not to teach the old ways, and then you take an apprentice that very same night."  
          Crowley waved McClellan back to his other duties and gestured. The old porcelain teapot floated to his end of the foyer table lazily. _He's right. What on earth did persuade me to take in my little hawk? It was too much of a coincidence to be sheer pity. _"I will thank you not to put words into my mouth." They were all equals now, merely distant acquaintances instead of brothers and colleagues. Still, Crowley retained a piercing-eyed air of authority that quieted Michaels' sullen look and made the priest sit up a bit straighter. "We no longer teach the Brotherhood's lore. We no longer follow our mission. But nothing stops me from teaching a hawk with clipped wings to fly."  
          Michaels shook his head, not daring to challenge his former leader but still unsatisfied. "But it is so dangerous. You yourself have told us how useless the old knowledge will be in the new world. Why not follow the rest of us and let the secrets die with you?"  
          Crowley's sharp face softened slightly as he reflected. "I don't really know. Part of me doesn't want to give up the dream. Part of me doesn't want to see millennia of knowledge die without an heir. Perhaps we still have a minor role left to play, as individuals instead of as a group."  
          "That is shaky logic," the other man observed. "Suppose this…Jack does not share your ethics? There is no more Brotherhood remaining to censure our own."  
          "I am the Master, still. He will learn what is right." _Besides,_ Crowley thought. _Jack is not my dragon. How angry you will be when _that_ rears its head, my lost Brothers._   
          He couldn't tell Michaels or any of the others about the vision, about his driving unconscious need to train Jack in order to fend off some unforseen future menace. They could no longer band together as allies in a crisis. Besides, Crowley had the sinking premonition that the dragon would be as much of his making—his fault—as Jack was.  
          "I cannot stop you," Michaels muttered grudgingly. "You are your own man, Br—Crowley." He sighed. "God go with you. And with your apprentice."  
          "And with you, Father."

December, 1856  
          Crowley found him alone in the chapel, gazing up through the stained glass of the largest window with a lost-in-thought expression on his face, hands clenched on the arms of the wheelchair. The boy had filled out in the past six months. Rest and diet had contributed a natural ranginess and height that never would have been his in the slums. Even his legs, though still paralyzed, had recovered muscular mass due to regular gentle exercise.  
          "Just a star," Jack mused aloud at the hollow sound of the older man's cane on the marble steps. "No Christ, no Madonna, no angels. Why not? This is the strangest church I've ever been in."  
          "It's a chapel, my—_our_—personal chapel. Not exactly a church." Crowley paused. "The God we worship has too many faces for the window to depict. And no real face. The star is a symbol."  
          "Of heaven?"  
          "Of power. The power within me—and yourself. The five-pointed star symbolizes the human body, the elements working in perfect harmony, the protection of magic. It is where the physical world touches the immaterial."  
          "That's magic. Where and when and how they interact." He was quick, the little hawk. His tenacity in studying the Art, born from years of helplessness on the streets, had earned him the nickname immediately. Only afterwards had Crowley remembered the vision and realized the name's appropriateness.   
          "Or perhaps the knowledge that there _is_ no division between them." He smiled privately at the boy's puzzled, thoughtful frown. "That is the Art. It is—" Crowley almost blurted, _that to which we swear our lives._ Cursing himself, he substituted, "—our occupation." _And a noble one, still, God willing._  
          "So we worship the power?" Jack, amused by the concept, thankfully did not catch Crowley's slip.   
          Crowley shrugged. "Is there a difference between the power connecting man and the universe and man's conception of God? Think on that, Jack. Be prepared to discuss it with me tomorrow." Crowley turned on his heel to leave the boy to his meditation. It was a difficult concept for one so young, so early in his training, but the older man wanted to get a grasp of exactly how talented and intuitive the boy really was. He had not yet found Jack's limitations. It would be a challenge for both of them.  
          "Master Crowley?"  
          He didn't turn. "Yes, child?"  
          "I didn't see the star symbols—pentagrams—in any of the spells we've looked at."  
          The boy was _fast_. "No. There never are. Some symbols are too powerful to use in direct magic."  
          "But if you found some way to make it safe…that power would be a good thing, right? You could do rather a lot with it."  
          Anxiety prickled along Crowley's spine. Jack couldn't know how far he'd just strayed into a major contention point among the former Brothers. "It is…most complicated. And most dangerous to try. Give yourself time to learn the basics first, Jack."  
          "Yes, Master Crowley." The youngster's tone was immediately contrite, but Crowley couldn't help but recall the vision that still haunted his dreams. _A hawk and a dragon struggle in the skies, fighting over a brass star clutched in the talons of the hawk… Jack, what will you do to trigger this? What will you do—or make—to produce such power?_ His last thought was almost plaintive: _How can I avert it, before the shadow consumes us all?_

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	2. Dragon

Sons of the Light Chapter 2 Chapter 2: Dragon

Author's Notes (non-nit-pickers can skip these):  
1) Ignorance notice: My Latin is nonexistent; I gathered the words I used for spells from a dictionary, so the grammar isn't there. Sorry. Also, which should be pretty obvious, I have no knowledge of WW1 British military history or the contemporary slang. Please bear with me.  
2) There is no lift (elevator) in the game. Non-players are not going to care, but, basically (for all you players), the shaft runs from beside the stairs on the ground floor hall to right under the fish trophy upstairs. You simply don't notice it in the game, of course. (Here's a fun Easter egg: if you select "Operate, fish trophy, operate" 57 times, the game eventually relents and lets you find the elevator. Try it with your friends. Suggest it to your neighbors.)

February, 1913  
      Jack was in the greenhouse when the air-raid alarm sounded from the valley. Frowning, he glanced up, adjusting the glasses that sat uneven on the end of his nose, and set the watering can down beside his chair. The day was quiet, and late-afternoon sunlight filtered dimly through the smudged glass panes. "Nal'chez—"  
      The hawk perched on the back of the chair spread its wings and cawed in response. Absently, Jack reached up to touch the proud, muscled neck.  
      A huge, beautiful specimen, Nal'chez was actually a daemon—a minor spirit of limited but sentient intelligence. Jack had summoned the spirit from its own dimension into the body of the hawk; no one could physically cross between the worlds. Once he'd mastered his specialty—the use of _foris_, or portal, magic—some years ago, Jack had populated the manor with all sorts of minor harmless spirits. The work of the various daemons, sprites, and elementals greatly lessened the load of the aging servant. The Master's magic had granted McClellan a far longer and more active life than most men, Jack reflected sadly, but, unlike what it did for those who actually wielded the power, it could not postpone aging and death for more than a decade or two. The dear old man would not be with them for much longer.  
      The alarm shrieked again, more insistently, knocking Jack from his reverie. "Go. Watch the town." Cawing its acquiescence, the hawk lifted into the air on powerful wings and rode the slight breeze out the open door. Closing his eyes, Jack settled back against the chair and cast his mind into the simple meditative state the Art demanded. _"Visum caeli,"_ he murmured, _"Abraxas."_  
      His consciousness lifted, separating from his body. Gazing downwards, Jack could just barely discern the thin silver cord connecting his spirit to the earthbound flesh below him. It was a disturbingly pitiful sight—dirty from its gardening hobby, hair in disarray, jaw slack and eyes closed, slumped within the wheelchair as though asleep.  
      Exultant despite the seriousness of the spell, Jack soared up through the roof of the greenhouse, floating over the manor grounds, and then higher, up until the clouds drifted below his feet.  
      For the paraplegic man, out-of-body travel was the most exquisite of freedoms, the closest thing to unfettered movement that he could ever experience. It was breathtaking, and Jack lingered in trance for longer than was strictly necessary. The skies were completely clear for miles, empty even of the persistent light rain and cloud cover. Somewhere, certainly, there were bombers over the countryside. But the village—and thus the manor—was in no danger today.  
      With the slightest shift of consciousness, Jack cast himself into the body of the flying daemon. He sensed a brief flicker of curiosity and acknowledgment from the alien mind, but nothing more. Daemons served because they were curious about new dimensions and because they didn't have the wit to long for freedom; they seldom needed to be compelled. Settling into the new body, Jack allowed himself to experience the same rush of near-ecstasy. Unlike the smooth, effortless floating of astral travel, winged flight was an exciting exertion, a constant powerful struggle against gravity and wind. It gave the flier a sense of his own strength and invulnerability, so far above the earth, as if Jack had mastered gravity itself.  
      Jack lingered, again, as Nal'chez circled, the village spread out like a patchwork quilt far below. He wasn't in town often, and his friendships with the inhabitants were many but shallow and casual. They knew him as the son of the first "Master Jack", and pitied him as a crippled recluse whom Crowley, a distant relative, was forced to support. Faced with that scorn, Jack tended to confine himself to the company of Crowley, the remaining Brothers, his daemons, and his books.  
      Accustomed to false alarms, the townsfolk were filing calmly into the shambling bomb shelter. There was no sign of any chaos that would threaten the manor. Jack suffered a sudden wild premonition of using the Art to protect the manor from German planes—it was not a pleasant image. For centuries, the Brothers of this house had kept their talents secret from all but their colleagues.  
      Abruptly, he became aware of another presence sharing Nal'chez's mind. The hawk, sensitive to its rider's emotions, dove in an abrupt spiral. The rush of vertigo sent a dizzying sensation through the abandoned body far below. Jack calmed the daemon with a thought when he recognized Crowley.  
      _Anything?_ The mental voice was strong, clear, for all that the magician was intruding upon the familiar of another. For anyone of merely average skill, that feat would have been impossible.  
      _False alarm_, Jack replied silently. _Return. You will grow weary._ With the closeness of the contact, he received a glimpse through Crowley's eyes—the old man was in the library, gaze locked but unfocused on one of the astrological charts. Briefly, the smell of musty paper and leather filled Jack's nostrils.  
      _I'll fly for awhile. You do it often enough, my hawk._  
      _True enough,_ Jack chuckled. _But, enough for today, at least for me. I will be in the chapel, Master._  
      Crowley's parting words surprised Jack. _Pray for me, then. The door is open, and the storm approaches._

      "Hey, Davis! Whatcha readin'?"  
      The young man responded by curling into a ball on his cot, trying to hide the book from the several curious pairs of eyes that focused upon him. The low rumble of a far-distant explosion drowned out any possible reply for a few moments. "Nothing. Leave me alone, Jackson."  
      "C'mon, let me see. I've never seen a grunt readin' a book down here before. Magazines, only." The enthusiastic Jackson finally managed to worm himself into a position to catch a glimpse of the cover. He read out loud with the slow, painstaking quality of one who does not do it often. _"Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, Henry Cornelius Agrippa. What th' hell's _that_ about? Sounds spooky."  
      "It's about the devil," Anderson stated grimly. He perched on his cot, across the trench from Davis, glaring at the other soldier. "All about Satanic worship. That's the 'occult philosophy'." The slightly older man spat angrily. "That for your books. You've got a lot of nerve bringing it down here."  
      Davis glared back, but looked away first. He was a little uncomfortable with the attention, noting how several more of the bored young men in the trench had shuffled closer to hear. In truth, he really couldn't explain the book's presence either—not in a way they'd understand. It had cost him several months' pay, and done very little good. "Oh, leave off, Anders. It's just bunk. It passes the time." In a final effort to avoid serious discussion on the topic, Davis stuffed the thick hardcover book back into his backpack.  
      "You're not really a Satanist, are you, Davis?" Jackson asked worriedly.  
      A laugh—somewhat touched with irony—was ready as a response. "Are you kidding? I'm a good Anglican boy. Don't listen to that sour-faced churchie. He sees the devil in the shit we leave in the bloody latrine." Their response, their laughter, their attention now focused on Anderson—all of it made him safe. Davis leaned back against his cot, closing his eyes. It had been hell, these past few weeks in the trenches, but tonight there was a rare peace and quiet stretching all the way across no-man's-land. He knew that he should rest, regain his strength before the near-constant gunfire began once again. Davis also knew that he couldn't.  
      _What's happening to me?_ This strange fascination with the occult had begun early in life. He'd pored through every book ever published on magic, monsters, and demons. When the silent motion picture industry began, Davis had turned his attention to the genre of horror films as well. Nothing answered his most pressing questions.  
      Then, a few years ago, the visions began. After a year of dreams alone, Davis discovered that strange things now occurred around him, especially when he was angry or upset. Furniture toppled itself, or he heard voices inside his head; people would say or do as he'd secretly willed them, or invisible hands crushed or destroyed small objects before him.  
      The young man's thirst for knowledge fueled a search for answers, but the available books on the occult left him unsatisfied. Most were sheer fakery, hinting at "esoteric secrets" that upon research proved no more than simple Gnostic claptrap or a vague, worthless astrology. No explanation for Davis' own powers presented itself. By now, the solider had all but convinced himself that he was blessed.  
      _I could be the second coming. I could be a miracle._ Davis frowned to himself. _If only I could discover the key to my powers, and learn to control them. There must be something. I wish I had peace and quiet to think._ His father, an old soldier, had pressured Davis into joining the army. From a large, working-class family, the young man grasped few other options for success. School, the pursuit of knowledge for which Davis thirsted so passionately—that was out of the question.  
      Finally, almost against his will, his tired mind shut down. His body drifted into sleep. The wild dreams that filled his slumber were normal by this point, visions which he knew had some meaning—a purpose that was, frustratingly, always just out of reach.  
      A hawk flew at him, talons extended, raking him across the cheek. A brass star formed of flame before his eyes, and immediately dissolved into icy rain. A child with the eyes of a demon hurled himself through a glass window. An old man, sealed in ice, screamed. Unseen hands pushed a black-robed form into a bottomless pit. Davis noted with some uneasiness that the robed figure had his face, as the old man's shrieks of pain became laughter. Shadows danced on the edges of his vision, demonic creatures with fiery red eyes and grasping hands that waited to drag him down to God-knows-where.  
      "Davis, wake up, you're having a nightmare, man."  
      _"…wake us up at _this_ hour he'd _better_ have that much potential, Master. Let me…"_  
      "I can't sleep with him making all that noise. Someone shut him up. Or else just toss him over the top into no-man's-land and let him bother the bloody Germans instead."  
      _"Almost, Master…almost."_  
      "You wouldn't really order us to do that, would you, Captain?"  
      _"Don't lose him."_  
      "Jackson, I swear to God, you've got less brains than the bloody rats. You know I wouldn't toss Davis up for the Germans. I won't have one of my men filling a bloody Kraut stewpot." Coarse laughter jarred Davis' ears, but then the divided sensation vanished. He was again totally within the dream.  
      Now, a chapel filled the vision. It was surprisingly ordinary scene after the shrieking demons, but one which caused the hairs on his nape to tremble warningly. _Something's wrong, something's not right in here._ Two men conferred inside, one old and Oriental, the other of nondescript middle years. The younger one sat in a wheelchair, with a large hunting hawk perched on his arm.  
      _"…not close enough,"_ the younger man was saying, lines of strain evident in his face. His lips moved soundlessly, but somehow Davis understood the words regardless. It was as though he hovered on the edges of the stranger's thoughts. _"…untrained, or defying us? I'm sorry, Master Crowley."  
      "You are in a calm place, touching the power?"  
      "Of course." _  
      Suddenly, the old man's inscrutable face registered slight surprise. The voice was definitely inside Davis' head, now, addressing itself directly to him. _Welcome, brother._  
      _"Yes, that's him…such power, to make such a noise with mere prescient dreams…untrained, too."  
      Listen to me carefully, boy. You will come to us._ The old man's eyes seemed to glow with compulsion. _You will come to us, and you will learn to control this power, young man.  
      "Coactum, abraxas,"_ the younger man muttered very softly, as though to himself, but Davis' reality seemed to warp and swim around him in response to the simple word. An overwhelming desire enfolded him. He would visit that chapel, pay his respects to the wisdom of the two aged Masters…  
      _No!_ Davis fought back frantically, but the compulsion only seemed to thicken with every moment. All desire for knowledge was forgotten; he knew only that these two men were forcing something upon him that did not come from his own mind. Finally, a desperate last resort, he remembered the older man's words to the other.   
      _In a calm place._  
      With an effort, Davis forced himself to calm, to relax into the compulsion, to sink below it so that it could not touch him. At his deepest, the young man touched something that floated up through his soul. Far from unpleasant, the sensation filled him with an overwhelming power and exhilaration.  
      The dreamer's body changed, stretching, becoming instead of a helpless human vessel the powerful form of a dragon—one of those old mythological creatures he'd enjoyed reading about as a child. The delicate strands of the web the two men's compulsion spell—for what else could it be?—had wrapped around him glowed a prominent silver before his adapted, magical eyes. This dragon was immense and powerful, and its fiery breath burned through the strands with ease, freeing him to soar and leave the evil old men far behind. Now that he had his secret trigger, he was Davis, slave of the earth, no longer. Dragon. Draco. Dracan.

May, 1915  
      "For my next astonishing feat, ladies and gentlemen, the spirits with whom I commune will allow me to reach into someone's mind and pick out his thoughts—indeed, his very past. I will need an audience member to contribute an item of personal value. A watch, perhaps, or a scarf, or even a small piece of jewelry." Thin hands dropped momentarily to adjust the folds of a theatrical black robe before gesturing with a flourish.  
      "Here." The voice from the front of the audience was quiet, but some quality about it commanded Dracan's immediate attention. Glancing up from a carefully maintained, distant and brooding expression, he met the dark eyes of a nondescript-looking man, perhaps of early middle years, in a somewhat worn gray suit and hat. Without the wheelchair, a completely unremarkable fellow. A very old, white-haired man, evidently an attendant, stood behind the chair, watching Dracan with oddly piercing and intelligent green eyes for so lined and withered a face.  
      Dracan's eyes narrowed, his "spiritualist" act forgotten. Body and mind were immediately tense and alert. _So you finally found me, did you?_ Yet the magician looked harmless enough, and a public show was not exactly the time for a confrontation. Dracan dropped a suspicious glance to the man's outstretched palm. Lying within was a small, five-pointed star, very old and forged of rusted iron, on a silver chain that pooled in the magician's hand.  
      _Damn you_. The blood drained from Dracan's face. Ever since his brief glimpse of the pentagram in the chapel window, two years before, that single image had haunted his dreams more than any other. The temptation to seek out the two smug old men and demand answers had been overwhelming at times. Only the memory of their attempted compulsion had stopped Dracan. _I will learn on my own, and go to them as a colleague, not as a beggar. I am no man's inferior. _However, the deeper mysteries, beyond these damned parlor tricks, had so far evaded him.  
      "I—ladies and gentlemen, I fear I must take a rest. The-the mystical powers that guide my thoughts tire me greatly. I will return in five minutes." Dracan fled the audience's groans and angry catcalls and the stranger's piercing stare for the relative peace of his dressing room. He collapsed into the single, hard wooden chair—he should count himself lucky even to have a room at all, Dracan noted sourly, with his cursed luck—and watched the door with a mix of suspicion and resignation.  
      As expected, the knock sounded less than a minute later. "Shall we talk, Dracan?"  
      "As you wish," the young man replied, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. A tension headache was burgeoning, and if this man was anything like the vision the pain would only get worse. Dracan opened the door with a gesture and a muttered _"abraxas". Let him see that I have power, too._  
      The old man pushed the younger one through the door and shut it carefully behind the trio. His actions and stance still evinced a strength belying the frail, elderly body. Dracan arched a questioning eyebrow.  
      "McClellan has been a loyal family servant for far more years than you or I have been alive," the man in the wheelchair stated firmly, noting the direction of the young man's gaze. "He can be trusted."  
      "But can you?"  
      Amusement glittered in the man's brown eyes. They were set too close together, and his rapid blinking spoke of nearsightedness. The man was almost ugly, on top of being crippled. He was smug and complacent, intimidating in his self-assured smile, but Dracan decided sneeringly that the effect, together with his undignified appearance, was a ridiculous one. "What do you think?"  
      "I doubt the trustworthiness of any man who would try to enslave another," Dracan snapped, the old grudge surfacing again.  
      The other shook his head sadly. "Ah, Dracan, how you misjudge us! We intended no harm. We merely wished to make certain that you would find your way safely and quickly to the manor. We offer education, and counsel among equals. Never servitude."  
      Dracan cocked his head cynically. "So you give out your knowledge demanding nothing in return? How very…_civilized_ of you." He couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice.  
      The stranger regarded him with a patient expression. "You earn your keep for room, board, and training while you're in the house, of course. Other than that, your are free, yes. I don't think you or I can truly understand Master Crowley's position. Once, he headed a powerful alliance of magicians that had influenced kings and nations for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Now, all he has is the faint hope of passing the Art onto others. He is a…most generous man." The magician's somewhat homely face suffused with sincerity, even love, as he spoke. He obviously held deep affection for this Master Crowley—who was, Dracan assumed, the Asian gentleman of the vision.  
      "I won't come as an adoring student," Dracan warned. "I have studied. I have my own power."  
      "What you can do, without formal training as you are, is nothing short of amazing," the other agreed. Yet the trace of a smile still hovering about the man's lips put a slight spin of condescension onto the reply. _Smug, isn't he? He of all people doesn't have that right over me, with him still in that chair despite all of his "power"._  
      Dracan realized with annoyance that he still didn't know the man's name. If refused, the magician would disappear safely, unable to be tracked by the overly curious. "For most, the gift vanishes without formal training. But there is far greater power to be had through discipline. You can do parlor tricks to impress a tavern crowd—" here Dracan shuffled a bit uncomfortably; that was a little too close to his most pressing feeling of failure, "—but you have yet to touch another dimension…to experience another's thoughts as your own…to create form from empty space and shape matter to suit your own mind. After nearly sixty years of study, I have yet to scratch the surface of my own potential…which may not perhaps be as high as yours."  
      _Sixty years? He is quite well-preserved. Or is he implying that immortality is a gift of this discipline, as well? That would be something._ "Why do you want me?" Dracan asked bluntly.  
      "You have potential, Dracan. We seek out potential." But something in the man's eyes, an uneasiness, gave that glib reply away as a lie, or at least a half-truth.  
      Dracan searched for a properly sarcastic response to that, but words failed him. Instead his eyes traveled hungrily to the magician's neck, where he knew the iron pentagram hung beneath the ill-fitting wool suit jacket. "Tell me about the five-pointed star."  
      "Ah." The magician smiled, sensing capitulation. He narrowed in on this new weakness like a hawk. "I will share with you what the Master told me soon after I'd first begun my studies." The voice—it was a Scottish accent, Dracan had decided—adopted an almost pedantic tone. "The pentagram is the symbol of our Art, and of all that we hope to gain by shaping the Art to our will…"

January, 1917  
      After checking on McClellan, Jack tiredly wheeled himself to the new lift at the back of the house. Marcus, McClellan's assistant and the future manor butler, had installed it last year so that Jack could easily access Crowley's bedroom and his own, nicer new room.   
      Of course he enjoyed the increased freedom of movement, the magician reflected, but the device made him nervous. Like Crowley, he had become a man of magic, distrustful of how radically the world had changed in the past half-century. Covertly, Jack had summoned a daemon one evening and set it into the lift cables to shore up the engineering. It hadn't been long, however, before the swollen-headed Dracan had discovered the modification. After the storm of derisive laughter had passed, Dracan's next move had been to demand to know exactly how Jack had done it.  
      _Impatient,_ Jack mused as the lift hoisted him with a low hum. The comforting tingle of magic at the nape of his neck told him the daemon was happily at work. _Impatient and disrespectful and far too confident of his own growing abilities._ Granted, the boy—he wasn't twenty-five yet—was _good,_ but he was also still virtually untrained. _I was never like this._  
      With one hand, Jack awkwardly lifted the latticework at the back of the upstairs hall—which existed mainly to protect errant daemons from falling down the shaft. He wheeled out quietly, trying not to wake Crowley. The old man slept lightly these days, and his door was open. A quick glance inside reassured Jack; the old man lay peacefully, on the side facing away from the door. Unlike many self-styled magicians, Crowley had never embraced asceticism; his room verged on opulent, and the soft, custom-made mattress was easy on aching, arthritic joints and muscles.  
      The Master was weaker, these days. The double strain of a new, challenging apprentice and a well-loved servant sick with terminal cancer had taken a lot out of the old man. But there was somehow more to his decline, Jack knew. Crowley had lived solely to serve and lead the Brotherhood for hundreds of years. These past sixty had been aimless and depressing in comparison. There was little Jack could do, though. Crowley adamantly refused to even consider re-forming the old organization, in any way.  
      Reaching his own bedroom door, the magician cocked his head, listening, hand on the knob. Dracan's door, opposite his own, was open. Within, there was a suspicious absence of the slightest sound. Like all of them, Dracan dreamed vividly, which produced rustlings and mumbles and the occasional yell.  
      Jack grabbed a lantern from his room, lit it with a mumbled, _"spearca, abraxas."_ He edged up to Dracan's door and cast the light over the bed and carpet, expecting an angry yell. Dracan was very mindful of his privacy and disliked being disturbed without good reason. The bedroom, however, was empty.  
      _He is not a prisoner here_, Jack reminded himself. _Dracan can go where he likes. Perhaps he's in town._ But the focused young man avoided the village pub and had no friends outside the manor. Jack was trapped between ignoring his insatiable curiosity and admitting his Scrooge-like mistrust of the new student. Perhaps he was simply jealous; the boy was powerful and studious and demanded so much of the master's time nowadays…  
      Shaking his head in disgust, Jack bowed to temptation. The magician closed his eyes, entering the level of his mind which was linked to all of the daemons throughout the manor. From this plane he could dismiss, order, or communicate with them. _Dracan. Where?_  
      A slight buzz tingled between his ears as the spirits conferred among one another. Finally, one voice piped in—the little air elemental he had set in the Magisterium to tidy the lab and observatory. Jack returned a brief thanks, resulting in a little pleased flush from the flighty spirit. Now more curious than suspicious, he wheeled himself back towards the lift.

      Dracan sat hunched on the single stool in the observatory, occasionally glancing away from the large telescope's eyepiece to make detailed notes. Charts and brief notations and odd markings covered the pages of his leather-bound journal in a spidery hand. Jack hovered in the doorway for a long moment, eyeing the feverish look on the man's thin face. Never had he seen such a…_driving_ hunger for knowledge as he did in this young apprentice.  
      "Why are you out here so late?" Jack finally asked, curiosity getting the better of him.  
      "You know a better time than night to watch the stars?"  
      Taking that for as much a welcome as he ever received from the surly student, Jack wheeled himself into the room. He noted Dracan watching him out of the corner of a dark eye. With a shrug, the younger man shifted his notebook so that Jack received a good view of the scrawls.  
      Dracan had planned out a fairly accurate map of the night sky, and sketched in the demarcations of the twelve astrological houses and the current conjunctions between planets. Child's play. Between some of the markings, however, he had drawn in tentative lines, many scored by heavy eraser marks. The final result seemed to be an uneven pentagram connecting five of those stars or planets. Puzzled, Jack leaned closer, trying to guess at the significance of the selected markings.  
      Dracan snapped the book shut with a definitive gesture, almost catching Jack's nose in the pages. Scowling, he looked up into the younger man's insufferably smug grin. "That had a purpose?" Jack really had no idea whether he meant the drawings or the childish taunt.  
      The younger man chose the former. His face sobered, taking on an odd, almost reverent cast. "We do so much with the Art," he began with the casual arrogance that only Dracan could produce. _So much? When you've studied the Art for a bare eighteen months? You are an _infant_, Dracan._ But that same curiosity held back Jack's sharp retort. "But we could do so much _more_. How many of our limitations stem from the potential in the Art and how many from our own hang-ups?"  
      "Limitations such as…?" Jack prompted, intrigued despite himself. Sometimes there was genius in the boy, shining through the arrogance and impatience and surliness.  
      "Your spine." The answer was succinct and obviously prepared.  
      "My spine," the older man echoed flatly, fixing the boy with an unfriendly stare.  
      "Or McClellan's tumor, if you like." Oblivious, Dracan stood, stretched, and began to pace, the nervous energy vibrating from him clearly. "We can summon spirits…create and destroy matter…form portals between far-distant destinations…compel another to do our bidding—that one you know well, Jack—but we cannot heal. Why is this?"  
      "Faith healing has nothing to do with the Art."  
      "So it comes from—what? God?" Dracan snorted. "Listening to Crowley, you'd swear that the Art _is_ God. Listening to that dried-up old stick, Michaels, you'd hear that healing is the will of God alone. But couldn't you say the same about making a portal or summoning an elemental?"  
      "My spine was not the will of God," Jack noted. The point was well-taken, he admitted, but it still stung. Despite all his power in the Art, he would never walk. And Jack was already one of the strongest, barely below Master Crowley in ability and skill. "It was the will of a drunken quack who told my mother that he was an obstetrician. Yet, still, my legs do not move. Faith healing is something separate from what we do…a separate gift, and a very rare one in any degree of strength."  
      "Yes, but _why?"_ Dracan continued, not swayed by the dangerous tone of Jack's voice. The boy was most definitely not skilled with people, a fact which had landed him—despite the talents of his "parlor tricks" act—in progressively less prestigious and smaller shows. "The Art is limitless, ultimate, shaped only by the skill and power of the magician. At least that's what I've been taught." A grudgingly mollifying nod to Jack, the tutor in question. "So, we cannot heal. We cannot kill, not directly—"  
      "And we do not _want_ to," Jack cut in quickly. "Remember that, Dracan. You walk on thin ice."  
      He waved away the warning with an irritated gesture. "This is speculation. I have no desire to kill anyone. I just want to know _why_ the Art is so limited in some respects."  
      "And connections between the stars help this…quest for knowledge somehow?" Abruptly, a picture formed in Jack's mind. The shape made by those lines was proof enough. "You're attempting to use the pentagram in direct magic," he stated, not even bothering to phrase it as a question.  
      Dracan glanced curiously at his somber face, eyes bright. "Just think of the power implicit within—"  
      "It won't work. Others have tried—_Masters_ have tried. You know better than to tamper with forces that you do not understand, Dracan. You have been studying for less than _two years_. It will take far more time to master the intricacies of the established ways of the Art. You need to understand the fundamentals before you begin your own research. The Art is…not kind to those who misjudge its laws." Paraseius, one member of the old Brotherhood, had simply vanished, completely immolated, by a portal spell attempting to cross dimensions—a well-known impossibility which the old man had been researching.  
      Dracan grimaced at the unexpected lecture. "I still have a mind, Jack, regardless of how few years I have studied." He gestured with the notebook. "I think it lies in the stars, you see. If the stars are in the right formation, the ambiance"—the term generally referred to the environmental influences that strengthened or weakened the Art's power at any given time—"is so conductive that the strongest magic may become controllable. Is it any coincidence that this very probable strongest formation is in the shape of a pentagram?"  
      Jack studied the eager, boyish face, with its wide eyes and indifferent stubble of beard, narrow-eyed for a long moment before discipline broke in favor of scientific curiosity. "Show me."  
     

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	3. Star

Sons of the Light Chapter 3 Sons of the Light

Chapter 3: Star  
Author's Note: What could be more cliched and corny than bumbling American tourists (such as myself) who wander into where they're not wanted? I couldn't resist the mental image. Enjoy.

March, 1978  
          The Masters slept.  
          All three of them. Dracan sneered to himself as he slipped into the half-conscious state that allowed him to control his dreams. In truth, there was only one Master remaining in the old manor home. Crowley had grown timid and weak in his old age, and Jack was far too timid to begin with. The cripple, with his hidebound ways and slavish devotion to Crowley, hardly deserved to be called a Master, either. But he, Dracan, was in the full flush of his power, unconstrained by Crowley and Jack's many old fears. And he was on the verge of unimaginable power.    
          _"Visum posterus, abraxas."_ The lips of his material body, currently fast asleep upon its bed, shaped the words, but the energy behind them originated from the wide-awake spirit within. He was good with prescient dreams and visions, far better than Jack or Crowley. It galled Dracan to admit that he needed help even from his own subconscious, but time was growing short.  
         _You believe you have my confidence, Jack, because I amuse myself toying with your limitations. How amusing, brother._ Every so often, Dracan would announce a new time for the "Congruence", having long since discovered the real, exact date. Jack lulled himself more every day into a false sense of superiority, disproving every one of the suggestions. The cripple was afraid of the power, afraid of anything that wasn't already recorded in the ridiculously limited store of knowledge in Crowley's library.  
         Faint shadows brushed at his peripheral vision, toying with him, just out of reach. Dracan ignored them. In every vision, he received hints of danger, flickers of some great evil in the future. Such things were commonplace encounters in the true Art, but even Jack could handle the negative energies occasionally raised during practice.  
         Abruptly, conscious thought dissipated as the vision struck. _Name me,_ a figure demanded from within a shielding circle. Otherworldly flame blazed about a dark silhouette with glowing green eyes. Just outside the circle, an emaciated figure in dark robes smiled, an unpleasant expression. With a nudge of its foot, the figure scuffed out part of a chalk line on the floor, freeing the entity.  
         _That's a summoning spell,_ the present-day Dracan realized, astonished. It could be nothing else. The pentagram was chalked onto the floor to hold a spirit captive between dimensions while the nature of servitude was negotiated. Candles flickered at the five points, casting dim light and shadows across the room to conceal the other ritual trappings. _Those take far too long. The Congruence will last only for bare seconds._  
         The dream-Dracan's lips moved—frustratingly enough, most of the time Dracan could not hear his own future voice. Then the man gestured, definitively, and the spirit floated free of the circle, entering the room—which Dracan now recognized to be his own private workshop within the Magisterium.  
         Stunned, he could only watch stare with incomprehension. _It's entering this dimension in its own body! Oh, a portal spell,_ was his slow realization, _between dimensions. Of course. Technically impossible by the laws of the Art, but with the power of the Congruence anything should be attemptible. But how to squeeze it in within the allotted time?_  
         As though in answer, Dracan's viewpoint rotated until he faced the doorway. Jack perched within, observing the ritual unseen, homely features creased in a scowl of deep disapproval and fear. Hardly surprising. But there was something else in his expression, a gnawing discomfort—guilt, perhaps?  
         The world spun, the vision changed. Jack and Dracan slumped at the manor's long oak dining table—which could comfortably seat twelve but never saw more than the three of them present—coffee pot between them. While Dracan nursed his cup, Jack gestured animatedly, lips moving. Fingers sketched a pentagram into the air briefly, as though to illustrate his point.  
         Comprehension dawned on the present-day Dracan. _Oh, no. This _can't _mean that I have to rely on _Jack_ for my answer?_ The idea was abhorrent. What was so esoteric that Jack and not Dracan could discover it? The Master tossed wearily in his sleep. As much as he hated accepting Jack's—or anyone's—help, the lust for knowledge was far greater. All that remained was the construction of a valid excuse.

         Ammanor, the manor's little messenger, informed Jack that Dracan wished was looking for him. The squat, many-legged creature twirled happily around the wheels of the chair, occasionally hopping up to perch on the magician's shoulder. Its eyes glittered brightly in the tiny, wrinkled old-man's face as four or five free hands toyed with some small bit of metal it had collected.  
      Jack had to shield his eyes and look away once he entered the observatory. While most eyes could not see the Art's flow, a Master's were quite sensitive. The force of the magic within smote Jack like a physical blow. "God, Dracan, what are you _doing?_ No wonder the daemons have been so hyperactive."  
      The dark-haired man glanced up at the intrusion, a rare smile on his thin face. Energy flickered and died around his robed figure as Dracan aborted the spell. "Practicing, my brother. Practicing." He rubbed his hands together, as close to beaming as that sour face could ever approach.  
      "For…?" Jack prompted tiredly. After sixty-odd years, Dracan's wild mood swings no longer alarmed him.  
      "For the Congruence, of course." Dracan announced it grandiosely, as though this were some important news. He cocked his head curiously at Jack's sigh. "You're not excited."  
      "Forgive me if I can no longer muster the same enthusiasm." Jack gestured at the telescope. "Every year, it is a new estimate, and every year it falls through." Sixty years of work and they'd never been able to pin down the precise moment when the stars achieved the Congruence—the perfect pentagram shape within the twelve houses. Every year, the five-pointed shape was slightly off, though the skew had seemed to narrow in recent years. Jack had truly started to doubt that the Congruence was even real. No Master had ever discovered it before, after all. But Dracan, as stubborn as he was overconfident in his own power, refused to abandon the quest.  
      "_This_ time I believe I have the answer." Dracan grabbed a loose leaf of paper from the table and flapped it excitedly. "The _planets_, Jack, not the stars. Two sets of five primary astrological bodies—the eight other planets, plus the moon and sun—equals two pentagrams, one inner and one outer. The inner one—well, the inner planets move fairly quickly, but the slow-moving _outer_-—therein lies the key! When inner and outer pentagram overlap, _then_ is the height of power. The Congruence." Dracan looked extraordinarily pleased with himself.  
      "I see. Ten heavenly bodies arranged in one specific configuration? It can't happen very often."  
      "Once every thousand years or so, roughly. I have not yet done all the appropriate calculations—"  
      "It doesn't matter. I don't suppose the next one is anytime soon?"  
      "August, I believe. Now, the only dilemma which remains—"  
      _"This_ August?" Jack fixed Dracan with a flat, unfriendly stare. "Extraordinary coincidence. Exactly how long have you known about this, Dracan? And when were you planning to tell me?"  
      Dark eyes sparkled back with eagerness, close to hunger, as Dracan shrugged. "I require your assistance, brother." He appeared to choke on the words a bit, and Jack sighed to himself. Dracan would never change. "As I was saying, our only dilemma is to decide what to do with these energies in the time remaining. _Anything_ should be possible within that ambiance…but it is so damned frustrating that we are limited by mere time constraints rather than the laws of the Art, now. The Congruence will last for no more than five or ten seconds before the first planets begin to slip out of alignment. _All_ of our powerful spells—the ones worth casting at this time—take far longer. So…"  
      Jack had tuned Dracan out long since, and now sat staring into space, chewing on one end of his ever-present pencil, lost in thought. "What if…" When the idea cemented itself in his head, the older man turned a sharp gaze on the younger. "What if the Congruence itself could be cemented and contained, somehow?" Dracan frowned at him, eyes oddly bright. "Then we'd not have one second, but could draw its ambiance at any given time through simple contact with the simulacrum. A basic enchantment spell takes only a moment; the rest is all preparation."  
      Dracan sucked on his teeth thoughtfully, an old habit which made Jack wince and look away. "Yes," he said slowly, that same uncharacteristic animation returning to his face, "but it would take entire tomes to copy down all of the symbols involved in transcribing the Congruence onto a simulacrum."  
      "Not necessarily. No tome. One object, one symbol, infused at the very height of convergence."  
      "A single object serving the purpose of the most powerful grimoire ever produced?" Despite himself, Dracan was obviously impressed.  
      "It's never been done."  
      "No one's ever worked with an ambiance this powerful before, either." Dracan's grin nearly took in his ears. He tore off another page from the notebook and began to make detailed sketches. Intrigued despite himself, Jack leaned closer.

      Crowley leaned back in the heavily padded chair, vainly seeking the calm of meditation. Dark eyes fixed on the patio, drinking in the view of the garden beyond. Normally, Crowley found such relaxation time most comfortable, but today his brooding would not allow him rest.  
      Marcus pushed the steaming teacup towards him. "Anything else I can get you, sir?"  
      "What? Oh. No." Crowley roused himself for long enough to nod a dismissal to the elderly servant, but the man only stiffened and stared past his employer. The Master followed his gaze to the railing, where a small black spider had just begun the laborious web-spinning process.  
      "It will not hurt you, Marcus."  
      "Forgive me, Master Crowley." Marcus exhaled shakily, eyes still locked on the arachnid. "I'm a weak man that way, but I'm not scared of nothin' other than spiders. Beggin' your pardon for disturbin' you." Hastily, Marcus grabbed the teapot with one hand and shuffled from the parlor.  
      _Nothing but us, you mean._ Crowley sighed, leaning back in the chair. So many generations of men had lived out their relatively short adult existences in the manor, their only purpose to serve the Masters. Though they arrived willingly, normally recommended by their predecessors, once inside they joined a long succession of identical, ignored shadows of men bound to servitude and secrecy by the Master's Art. The sole reward of loyal service was a plain grave within the manor's stone labyrinth. Was it any wonder that these simple men feared the all-too-obvious power of their employers? Not that Crowley would ever threaten or harm a servant; none of the manor's many past and present residents would, except perhaps for—  
      "You called." Dracan hovered in the doorway, his face a mask of obvious annoyance. Thin fingers drummed an impatient rhythm on the engraved silver doorknob._ At least he never conceals who--what--he is. He has a peculiar sort of honesty to match his brilliance._  
      "Come in." Crowley levered himself to his feet with his cane. Even standing for long took a great deal from him now. The Art lengthened one's lifespan—by centuries, if one was powerful and lucky—but it did not grant immortality, and the old Master knew that he was fading. But Dracan was no more a pupil; always prickly, the boy would feel the insult if Crowley sat while he had to stand.  
      Somewhat warily, Dracan strode into the room. His hair was in disarray, limp and tangled, and his clothing looked to have been slept in—for several nights. All indicated that he was deeply immersed in this ill-fated research of his. "You've been trying something new," Crowley noted diffidently.  
      Dracan lifted an eyebrow. "This is a crime? Your pet, Jack, is collaborating with me in this…little project of no importance, if that makes you feel better."  
      "I have no interest in judging your work." Crowley passed a weary hand over his eyes, leaning heavily on the old silver-tipped cane. "But I am…concerned, Dracan. I know what it is you attempt."  
      The younger man's nearly-black eyes narrowed immediately. "No. You can't."  
      It took every ounce of strength within him to force his spine straight and throw back his shoulders. Dracan was sometimes more wolf than dragon; one hint of weakness, and the boy would hone in mercilessly. And the younger man was a more than perceptive judge of character and emotions. "I have had…most terrible dreams, _prescient_ dreams," Crowley began forcefully. "Have you forgotten Paraseius, Dracan? _Foris_ magic is extremely dangerous, once we stray from the natural laws." Passion—and fear for Dracan's safety—leant an energy to Crowley that he hadn't experienced since the Brotherhood dissolved. "Will you destroy yourself, and take the entire damned house with you?"  
      Surprise flickered in the dark eyes, followed almost immediately by fury. "You are no longer the only Master, Crowley. And I am no longer the student. You will not presume to lecture me about what I can do with the Art. Simply because you are afraid to try—"  
      Crowley sighed, raising a hand to interrupt Dracan's building diatribe. _I knew it wouldn't work, but I _had_ to try. I have lost control of him, if I ever did have it at all._ "This is no way to challenge my authority, Dracan. Ignore my advice if you will, use and discard Jack if you will—" At his slight widening of the eyes and indrawn breath of surprise, and Crowley smiled grimly to himself. "—but find another way to free yourself from whatever chains you imagine around you. Sixty years is too brief a time to fully understand the natures of the power with which you tamper."  
      Dracan glared back at him. Insolence obvious in his every movement, the younger man stalked over to the parlor's single chair and sat. Crowley sighed to himself. "Again you try to pass yourself off as the only Master, Crowley. You gave me the title yourself, some years back. Will you revoke it? Will you cast me from this house, or attempt to wrap a compulsion spell around me again?"  
      "Never," Crowley stated quietly but firmly. "You know that."  
      "Then stand back and let me be," Dracan snapped. "If you only stopped viewing me as a child, then there is so much that you could learn from me." Crowley winced, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. God, the boy's arrogance, so unbelievable, but justified in the smallest way by his very real brilliance! "Until that day comes, at least allow me the dignity of continuing my research without these little spats. I am not like you or Jack, Crowley. I do not accept restrictions simply because some dead Brotherhood set down laws motivated only by fear. Good day." Nodding decisively to himself, Dracan stood and marched from the room.  
      Grimacing, Crowley tottered back to the chair, legs aching. He was long accustomed to Dracan's rudeness; Crowley's annoyance was directly wholly at himself. Before sitting, though, the old man reached out to lay one hand lightly on the dusty paisley upholstery, mentally seeking any fleeting impressions of Dracan. Anger touched his sixth sense, and anxiety, arrogance, resentment, driving hunger, and a confusing uncertainty, but no hint of the future. No indication if events still progressed as the vision indicated or if Crowley had managed to sway them. However, the old Master had the distressing premonition that he already knew that answer.

May, 1978  
      All traces of sullenness gone, Dracan motioned Jack into his room, even standing aside so that the other man could fit his wheelchair through the doorway. Flushed with excitement and anticipation, he barely resembled same irritable Dracan whom Jack saw far too often.  
      "You have it?" Dracan asked.  
      "Yes." Jack reached carefully into the bag hanging from the chair's side to withdraw the palm-sized metal disc. Logically, he admitted that there was no reason to treat the thing so tentatively—it was just a blank piece of brass, after all. But its importance still brought tremors of awe to both men.  
      Dracan held out his hands impatiently. With a trace of irrational reluctance, Jack passed the disc to his fellow researcher. The other man weighed it in his hands carefully. "The specifications are exact?"  
      "The metalworker is the best in Scotland." They'd had the disc forged by mundane means; even the slightest bit of unnecessary magic could interfere with the Congruence. Jack shrugged, unable to contain his excitement. He wished, not for the first time, that he could pace like Dracan or Crowley when overstimulated. It looked so damned…relaxing.  
      "Excellent." The younger man held the disc up to the bedside lamp with that insufferable smile on his face. "All we have to do is wait. Within three months we shall have our star, and a power as none have ever seen before."  
      Jack fought to match the smile. He should be thrilled, he knew; the project was more ambitious and exciting than any ever attempted in the history of the Art, and involved minimal risk. Yet something about the entire situation had grown more disturbing over the months; yet, frustratingly, attempts at prescient dreams and subconscious work failed to identify the sources of Jack's doubts.   
      _It is just Crowley,_ Jack reasoned. Despite the fact that he and Dracan were both Masters, pursuing a perfectly safe and acceptable independent project, some part of Jack trembled at the idea risking the Master's disapproval. _We will tell him when we finish,_ Jack consoled himself. _It would be too embarrassing otherwise, if we failed at pinpointing the Congruence again. This Star will truly change the Art and perhaps the world itself. It is noble work._ He couldn't deny traces of anxiety at the idea, but the potential benefits far outweighed the risks. Dracan was right, for once.

August, 1978  
      The small chamber stank of scented wax and smoke. Jack slumped against the back of his chair, watching the billowing clouds of the cauldron fire form shapes, the pinpoints of flame flicker and shiver as several of the manor's air daemons—drawn by the energies in the room—danced about restlessly. Looking at the energy patterns themselves had made him dizzy.  
      Apparently, Dracan suffered no such delicacy. Head thrown back, spine stiff, long hair tossing with the daemons' movement, the younger man was in his element. A wide grin creased his thin-lipped face as he intently studied the flow of power around overlapping twin pentagrams chalked onto the floor. Slowly, he and Jack were both feeding their Art into the center, where the brass disc rested on a makeshift pedestal—Dracan's small nightstand. Since he was touching the Art, Jack's senses tingled with the approaching power. It would not be long.  
      "One moment," the motionless Dracan announced hoarsely. So far as Jack knew, he'd stayed in the small ritual room for days, checking and re-checking their meticulous preparations. For all that the Star was Jack's idea, this was Dracan's project, his opus, and Jack knew that he'd only been invited because it would take two Masters to manage the incredibly powerful flow of energies at the height of the Congruence. Considering the constant tension between Dracan and Crowley, Jack had presented the only viable option. "Can you feel it?"  
      Jack nodded, wheeling himself over the chalk outline. A brief thought maintained the magical seal about the pedestal despite the intrusion of his body. They'd had to construct quite a shield to contain all the necessary forces.  
      Just as his hands left the wheels, the tingle along his nerves surged into a roar that nearly overloaded Jack's mind. Linked to the Art as he was, the sudden rush of power flooding through his body was a shock that left him at once breathless and surging with ecstasy.  
      "God…_now!_" Dracan gasped.  
      Jack was already murmuring the appropriate words. His hands felt thick and clumsy as he gestured the symbols into existence, unfit vessels for the sheer power available. _"Facultas, abraxas!"_ The final two words, the seal on the spell, emerged as little more than a breathy mutter. Vaguely, Jack was conscious of Dracan shouting the same. Their volume did not matter. The resulting surge of energy knocked Dracan from his feet and sent Jack slumping against the side of the chair, head ringing as though struck.  
      Jack had no idea of how long he nodded there, stunned. Dracan was the first to recover. Still tottering slightly, he stumbled to the nightstand, somewhat gingerly taking the brass disc into his hands. Apparently, whatever he saw or sensed agreed with him, for a wide grin spread across his severe features. "Jack! It's done! Jack?" Curiously, Dracan walked—steadier now—over to his fellow magician's still-limp form.  
      _Move right now, damn you,_ Jack ordered his body. With an effort, he managed to blink, but that was all. Every part of him tingled with the pins-and-needles feeling of a constricted limb.  
      "Ah." Dracan slumped to the cold concrete floor besides Jack's chair. "I'll show you when you recover. That spell had quite a kick to it." He laughed almost boyishly as he held up the disc. The thing blazed to Jack's sixth sense, practically radiating power. Across the surface of the disc had been imprinted a perfect, five-pointed star.  
      Grinning, Dracan reached up to pat Jack's shoulder with a camaraderie that was almost tender. "Sleep well, brother. I think…I think we both deserve it."

February, 1979  
      It was far too early in the morning to be awake, Jack had decided, but he'd risen before the sun with an odd feeling of premonition that disallowed further sleep. With Crowley still resting and Dracan growing more uncommunicative by the day, he'd resigned himself to another day of solitude. Taking the lift down to the first floor, Jack selected a book at random from the library—one of Crowley's anthropological texts, he noted—and wheeled into the foyer to read.  
      He'd just immersed himself in James George Frazer's clumsy analyses of primitive magic when the intercom next to the door buzzed, indicating that a visitor was at the gate. Jack wheeled himself up to the box and thumbed the receive button. "Yes? May I help you?"  
      Through the static of the open line he caught a hoarsely whispered conference interspersed with several giggles. Finally, a man's voice interjected in an obvious American accent, "Hello? When are your tours, please? And how much?"  
      "Tours?" Jack paused, confused. "I think you've been misled, sir. This is a private home."  
      "Oh." The line buzzed with open static for a moment, then a woman's voice interjecred, "But the Fodor's guidebook has this house listed as one of the main historical sites of Scotland…?" She trailed off suggestively.  
      _This again._ "Yes, ma'am, you're correct, this house is a historical site because it's so old—the foundation about a thousand years, I believe. But it still is a private residence, and we don't give tours. I'm sorry."  
      Jack had just picked up the book again when the buzzer sounded once more. "Yes?"  
      "I don't suppose you could make an exception…just let us see the entryway and the back and the old foundation, take a few pictures…? We're on our honeymoon, you see, and…"  
      "I'm sorry, sir, but the master of the house is quite ill, so that is out of the question."  
      "Oh. Sure. Sorry."  
      This time, Jack found himself brooding instead of picking up the book. Incidents like that had grown more frequent over the past twenty-five years. Crowley had adamantly refused to open the manor to tourism despite failing financial circumstances, which Jack supported. But it was what Crowley's refusal signified, his slow withdrawal from the world, that worried the younger man.  
      This strange, fast-paced new life of science confused them both—Dracan, born later, had adjusted far more easily. But, while Jack coped, Crowley had simply stopped interacting with the bizarre new outside world, contenting himself with his books and research. Jack couldn't remember the last time the old man had left the house—not after Marcus arrived, certainly, and probably not after Dracan did. _We were right to dissolve the Brotherhood,_ Crowley had told Jack once, not long ago, _we were not meant for this new place._  
      True enough; the other twelve members of the old Brotherhood had faded away over time, most of them now dead. The few who were still alive lived in the same seclusion as Crowley, but without apprentices, allowing their centuries of knowledge to die with them. _We are the new Brotherhood, Dracan and I,_ Jack noted, and shivered to himself.

      "Dave, maybe we shouldn't be doing this…"  
      The young man paused with one leg already over the top of the brick wall. "C'mon, it was your idea to get a closer look at the house. You heard the man. The foundation is a _thousand_ years old…and did you see the gorgeous little medieval church over the top of the wall? We're just taking a little look from the top. We won't go inside." In a wheedling tone of voice, he played his trump card. "Sweetheart, remember why we _came_ to Scotland?"  
      The woman grinned to herself. "Of course." With Dave a history major and Laura in architecture, the chance for the two graduate students to travel to Scotland and soak in the history of the ancient towns and monuments was a tremendous one. "Give me a boost-up?"  
      When they were both perched atop the wall, Dave whistled. "Isn't that a beaut? I'd love to know the story behind this place."  
      "I _get_ the chapel—gorgeous, by the way—" Laura observed, "—and the old greenhouse, but what's the little building on the far side? The one with the domed roof? It looks almost…Moorish, but that's impossible if it's really as old as the rest of the house. But is that a _telescope?_ How _could_ they butcher a beautiful old building like that?"  
      Her husband grinned. "Wanna go find out?"  
      "Dave…"  
      _"C'mon._ We're not going to bother anyone." Grunting, Dave turned and scrabbled down the rough, uneven bricks of the wall. "Good thing…that this is so…badly maintained! It's got…footholds!"

      Something trembled along the channels of the Art.  
      Frowning, Jack glanced up from the book. All of his senses were suddenly tingling with that warning sensation which screamed of powerful magic nearby. Concerned, he entered trance with the barest thought and aimed a question at the daemons. All that arrived in return was a garbled sensation of anxiety, verging on real fear.  
      _Dracan,_ Jack thought grimly. _Who else? What on earth are you doing now?_ He considered contacting the other magician telepathically and discounted it. Few could lie in direct mind-to-mind communication—but a Master could. Instead, Jack set the book on the coffee table and wheeled himself towards the manor's back door. He knew he'd find Dracan in the Magisterium.   
      Instinct once again proved correct. Dracan had set up in the ritual room he'd created for himself some decades ago. Confused, Jack noted the pentacle chalked onto the floor and the arrangement of lit candles—indicating a summoning spell to his trained eye. The younger man, obviously deep in trance, clutched the Star in both hands. A near-constant stream of Latin trickled from his lips; Jack recognized the words, but he'd never heard them in a summoning spell before. The chant sounded more like the one used to create a direct portal between locations.  
      Sudden dread flooded through Jack. _Oh, no. He _wouldn't! Not even _Dracan_ could be so impetuous. The magician hesitated, torn between the knowledge that he couldn't stop Dracan from completing the spell and killing himself and the desire to try anyway. Aborting a summoning spell could be disastrous; the doorway between dimensions had to be managed very carefully.  
      The rift within the pentagram—normally so thin as to be invisible—was a thick ribbon of nothingness in the air, quivering and twisting wildly as it fought to escape the constraints of the spell. Jack gritted his teeth, every nerve on edge. Yet, by all logic and every rule of the Art, the spell should have escaped control almost immediately. Sharp eyes noted how tightly Dracan's hands clutched at the Star, so that the knuckles stood out sharp and white. He was drawing so much power from the simulacrum—enough for him to accomplish the impossible and keep the portal between dimensions open.  
      Triumphantly, the spellcaster lifted the star into the air, over his head. _"Arcesso, abraxas!"  
      "No!"_ Jack hissed, still too cautious to risk breaking the spell by shouting, but Dracan was too deep in trance to hear. "Damn you. Idiot!" Hastily, Jack spelled himself into trance and created a glowing magical shield about himself with a mutter of _"Ara, abraxas."_ He couldn't wheel himself out of range before the spell impacted.  
      "Definitely Moorish, I'd say, but look at all the Gothic woodwork and stonework along the walls. Authentic, too. Whoever built this—and it _was_ a very long time ago—had traveled a great deal."  
      Jack's head snapped to the side in alarm, just in time to notice a young couple stop in the doorway, staring inside.  
      "Oh, jeez, I'm sorry, we thought this building was empty—" the woman started, interrupted as her companion blurted, pointing, "What in God's name is that man _doing?"_  
      Startled by the shriek, Dracan broke concentration for a moment to glance back over his shoulder at the open-mouthed intruders before his attention immediately returned to the spell. Its delicate magical control broken, the portal warped, widening until it filled the circle. Something huge and dark hovered in the void beyond, slowly sliding out into the pentagram in the form of an inky-black, undifferentiated shadow. Two glowing points of light flickered open at the center of the shadow—blazing green eyes.  
      _It's entering in its own form,_ Jack thought wildly. _That's not possible._  
      One of the trespassers—possibly both—screamed; Jack couldn't blame them. Rattled, Dracan lost control of the spell entirely, and even the protective magic about the pentagram flickered out of existence. The portal began to narrow, and the entity rushed to fill the space left behind, expanding beyond the boundaries of the now-defunct pentagram.  
      Shadows swirled about Jack, striking at him like physical blows. His throat closed as the thing sucked the air from the room. Tendrils of darkness batted at the shield, striving angrily for entry. Jack was vaguely aware of Dracan, voice choked with desperation, calling a similar magical shield about himself.  
      _"Expello, abraxas!"_ Jack shrieked at the thing. "I banish you! Return through the portal!" Panicked, he'd lapsed into English, but the magic was strong enough that the spell held. Reluctantly, the shadow shrunk in on itself as the shape of the portal stabilized, the unknown dimension sucking back its hellish inhabitant. Dracan staggered to his feet, shaking his head. Wide dark eyes met Jack's.  
      "That was perhaps ill-advised," Dracan admitted hoarsely. A moment later, when a portal—a regular one, this time—opened and Crowley stepped into the room, face white with fear and anger, Jack allowed himself to close his eyes and collapse against the chair.

      Jack had to knock three times before the door opened a crack. Dracan's face peered out, unshaven and gaunt as always. "Leave me alone, Jack."  
      "Let me in, Dracan. We have to talk."  
      Grimacing, Dracan obligingly nudged the door open with one foot and stood aside. "Enter, then."  
      Once Jack had wheeled himself inside, Dracan shoved the door closed with perhaps a bit too much force. The bedroom lay in complete disarray. Clothing littered the floor, and the bed was rumpled and unmade. Sighing, Dracan stumped over to sit at the foot. The younger man's expression had the same, expected insolence, but Jack's keen eyes read tension into the set of the shoulders and the tightness of the mouth.  
      "I resent this…lecturing by yourself and Crowley," Dracan put in flatly before Jack could speak. "I am no longer a student, and I was never a child here. A Master researches what he will."  
      His prepared speech momentarily forgotten, Jack stared at him. "Perhaps we would have less difficulty if you acted like a Master. Two people are dead because of you, Dracan."  
      Dracan blinked back, genuinely surprised. "Two trespassers who brought it upon themselves, intruding into highly delicate work. _They_ interrupted the spell and nearly killed all of us." His expression bore traces of very real sulkiness.  
      "Highly delicate work," Jack echoed. Hands clenched white-knuckled on the chair's arms. "What did you think you were doing, Dracan? That spell was…an impossibility. It would have escaped control eventually."  
      "It was almost completed!" Dracan cried angrily. "Using the Star, I had enough power and control to finish the portal and pull the entity through. Can you _imagine_ the possibilities behind the success of such a spell, Jack? Of course I am horrified by the deaths of our two visitors, but if they choose to wander uninvited into volatile situations then they must tacitly accept the risks."  
      "But what was your purpose? To call in an entity that powerful, that evil—"  
      "You know such designations are pointless, Jack." Sulleness faded to inspiration as the younger man rose to pace, gesturing animatedly. "_Foris_ magic has always been limited by drawing in only minor entities. The transfer of a spirit between dimensions then robs the entities of most of their powers; they are limited by the mundane shapes we create for them. To call a powerful entity bodily into this dimension, with none of its powers lessened—imagine the potential of control over such a creature. I would have thought you of all people would understand, Jack. You've summoned many a daemon, yourself."  
      Stubbornly, Jack shook his head. "It's too dangerous. All that would be required is another distraction to warp the spell again. And once the entity enters this world you would need incredible amounts of energy and concentration just to control it! The risks—"  
      An angry gesture interrupted him. "You and Crowley are always lecturing about _risks._ Have you forgotten the very ideas behind the Congruence? My Star gives us _limitless_ potential. What is its purpose if I don't use it to explore new dimensions of the Art?"  
      Jack reached out to grab Dracan's arm; the younger man glanced down at him, annoyed, obviously restraining the urge to shake him off. "Promise me that you will not try this again," Jack said seriously. "Explore other dimensions if you must, but show yourself to be a true Master and exercise a little caution. I am…afraid of what else may happen as a result of this spell."  
      Impatiently, Dracan shook himself free of Jack's grip. "Of course I will research my spells most carefully. But…you're afraid of everything, brother. It is what weakens you." With a shrug, the younger man grabbed his journal from the nighstand and walked out the door in a swish of dark robes.

      The blade was steady in one hand as Jack clutched the heavy gold disc in the other. Carefully, he etched another line into the soft metal, curving it slightly. Other engraved runes and symbols already covered most of the shiny surface, the pentagram prominent among them. At the center of the disc was a small gem upon which Jack would focus the enchantment.  
      _I want to apologize, brother._ The visit that morning had been too quick, too convenient, far too unlike Dracan. Jack doubted that his wayward brother had given up any of his plans or felt any real remorse for the damage he'd caused. He still spent his nights in the Magisterium, deep in research, though he knew that Jack and Crowley both watched him closely.  
      _I can't think here,_ Jack realized suddenly, his train of thought diverted. _I feel like a prisoner in my own home, rather than Dracan's jailer._  
      Sighing, he rubbed his eyes tiredly and lifted the amulet by the glittering gold chain. The pendant swung at the end, a perfect circle of gold, still useless until Jack laid the final enchantment. With a shrug, he reached beneath his shirt to pull out the iron pentagram he normally wore around his neck. That went safely into a dresser drawer, replaced by the gold protective amulet. Its magic was a pale shadow to that of the Star's, but Jack prayed that it would be enough.

April, 1979  
      Drawing power from the Star, it was an easy matter for Dracan to break the enchantment that locked Jack's door. With a casual thought, he dismissed any resident daemons and strode inside. Dracan cared little for others, but, as intensely introverted as he was, he had some respect for the ideal of privacy. However, necessity excused his actions, the Master told himself. Jack had acted…strangely these past two months, gradually growing more restless and unhappy. Dracan assumed it was the strain of keeping a close eye on him—Jack respected privacy too—but he wanted to be certain.  
      Jack's desk and dresser yielded nothing of importance—although Dracan wondered why Jack was not wearing his pentagram, as was normal. Folded clothes and piles of old research material did not interest the intruder. The nightstand, however, was an intriguing discovery. Within were a single paperback book and a small stack of handwritten letters.  
      Frowning, Dracan perched on the edge of the low bed and studied the cover. _Finding the Healer Within,_ by Beth Klein. His lip curled in disdain.  
      "Jack," he muttered to himself, "tell me that you have more sense than this."  
      The past few decades had witnessed a startling resurgence of vague occultism into the mainstream. Individuals and groups who had no connection to or knowledge of the Art now openly claimed "psychic powers". It was both amusing and insulting. Dracan had toyed with the idea of teaching these psychics who the real power was in this world. But he knew that Jack and Crowley could and would still stop him from claiming any temporal power or authority—it was too close to the forbidden purpose of their precious Brotherhood. Dracan could be patient, sometimes.  
      Dracan's amusement deepened as he leafed through the stack of correspondence. As he'd suspected, each was from the author of the book, and by the number of letters they'd kept a fairly regular correspondence going for around a year. Curious, he drew out the most recent letter.  
      _Jack: I'm not sure exactly what else you want from me. By your letters, you're far more advanced in your powers—the Art, you call it—than I. You've already heard my excuses regarding your initial inquiry. Your invitation to study in Scotland is most flattering, but I fear my inclinations lie towards a somewhat different philosophy. There is a power within all of us, regardless of innate talent or discipline, and it is never too late to learn…_  
      Dracan replaced the letter, bored. Flowery, overly self-satisfied, typically empty of real content or power. But Jack obviously thought that this woman had some talent with the Art, or he would not have invited her here. The realization was intensely irritating. How _dare_ Jack try to bring in one of these modern, empty-headed New Age gurus into this place of true power and knowledge? But realization replaced his fading annoyance. Dracan had his desired distraction. Patience had its rewards.

      Apologies for putting the story up piecemeal, but otherwise I'd never get it finished. Chapter 4 should be uploaded by mid-June, and Chapter 5 before July; the new job is leaving me less time to write, so it'll take a while.

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	4. Beth

Required Author's Notes:  
I'm aware that there are some historical inaccuracies in Chapter 2. Some mighty whoppers of historical inaccuracies, come to mention it. I will fix these eventually. Probably. 

Chapter 4: Beth  
April, 1979  
The middle-aged man pushed the wheelchair as far as the old gravel drive, where the specially hired, wheelchair-accessible taxi awaited.  
"You mustn't go, Master," Marcus fretted for the third time.  
Jack smiled up sadly at the man's strained face. _Marcus is so afraid of Dracan. I wish I could ease your fears, my old friend._ But Jack was afraid too--not _of_ Dracan, certainly, but of what he could _do_ in a fit of impulsiveness.  
"It's not my place, sir, but--"  
Jack exhaled pensively. He'd hoped to be gone by now, leaving this dreary old place and its quarreling old men for the refreshing new world--for a short time, at least. He knew that he'd return, that he was as much a dusty old relic as Dracan and Crowley. But he'd hoped to at least forget the terrible events of the past year for a time.  
"Dracan concerns you." Piercing eyes noted Marcus' hesitant nod. Jack sighed to himself. _My brother, forgive me. It was only a precaution. I never planned to do this._ "The key to Master Crowley's wardrobe," he began very quietly. "You know where it is?"  
"Of course, sir. I do his laundry."  
"Very good." Jack steered the man with one hand on his shoulder, until Marcus squatted uncomfortably at eye level. "In the drawer beneath is a wooden box. I made it. If Dracan does anything to endanger yourself, Crowley, or this place while I am gone, unlock the cupboard, take out the box, and, _somehow_, get Dracan's star. Put it in the box and close it. Lock the cupboard again and get away as fast as you can. Do you understand?"  
His eyes widened impossibly, showing white all around. "But, sir, if Master Dracan opens the wardrobe--"  
Jack enunciated very carefully. "The box doesn't open once it closes, Marcus. So I'd advise you to make it count should you need to use it."  
"Oh. _Oh_." Fear twisted the man's pale features. "Only if we are in danger?" He looked desperate to avoid that terrible duty. They both knew what it would do to Dracan to lose his precious Star. _I wish there was someone beside you, my old friend._ But Crowley was too weak. Dracan would absolutely explode if Crowley challenged his authority like this. An escaped servant might be beneath his notice for a little while.  
"Only then. You won't need it." Jack wished that he believed his own platitudes. "You have been the best of companions and friends, Marcus. I sincerely hope that you are here when I return." 

When the woman answered the knock at her door, she was toweling excess shower water from her long, dark hair. But she paused, half-hunched in that awkward posture, when her brown eyes met those of the man in the doorway. His thin hands rested lightly on the arms of his wheelchair, the only sign of his tension their rhythmic clenching and unclenching.  
"Good evening," Jack said politely, cocking his head at her expression. "Am I not welcome here?"  
Beth stepped aside far enough for the older man to squeeze his wheelchair in through the door. "Of course, you can come in. But, Jack," she looked into his eyes, her own gaze a mixture of exasperation and sympathy, "my answer is the same."  
Jack spread his hands calmly. "I'm here to change your mind." 

_This man,_ Beth decided, _is the single most stubborn, smug, arrogant, bull-headed human being I have ever met in my life._  
"You haven't associated with the men I live with," Jack observed calmly, pausing for a moment with the teapot hovering in one hand. "Otherwise, you would not say that."  
"I _didn't_ say that. Get out of my head, Jack."  
The wheelchair-bound man shrugged complacently. "As you wish."  
Enough was enough. Beth stomped over to where Jack had set his chair, and sat down firmly on the end of the couch closest to him. "Look, Jack--I know how much this means to you. I know how much this has influenced your life. But I can't help you. You know that."  
Jack frowned. This odd man, with his wild claims of power and Art and ancient Brotherhoods, was obviously not accustomed to hearing _no_. "What you can do--"  
"--is not in the league of healing paralysis!" Beth rose to pace, then remembered Jack, and somewhat guiltily sat back down again. "I'm a psychic healer, Jack. I don't perform miracles. What I do is encourage the power within the individual to heal himself or herself. I can't convince decades-old nerve and bone damage to knit itself up."  
"You sell yourself short," Jack noted clinically. "Technically, nothing is impossible with the Art. Except murder--and healing. But you have the capacity for both the Art _and_ healing, though you only use the one. That lecture you gave in London last year--I could sense your potential from the audience. It's an extremely rare gift--and the reason I am here."  
"This is another travel invitation, isn't it?"  
Jack regarded her levelly. "Give me the same chance that you would any other of your patients, Beth. That is all I ask. Chant, dance, use incense, use crystals, whatever it is that you do, just use your power to tell me that--not your rational judgment." Jack tapped his head. "I don't trust judgment, sometimes. People are too wrapped up in their own prejudices. The Art is without them."  
Beth sighed. "Fine." She supposed that she owed Jack _that_ much. Beth wasn't quite sure that she believed all of Jack's wild claims, but his letters revealed obvious and strong occult skill. She'd already learned much from him--though his methods were certainly different from her own.  
Almost a year ago, she'd received the first letter from Scotland regarding her lectures in London. Beth ended up with more than a few letters from lonely souls claiming occult powers, all of them either charlatans or seriously disturbed. Jack had been very different. He spoke with the voice of an experience she could barely grasp, simple instructions which had greatly focused her power and hinted at gifts beyond her modest healing talent.  
But this Art, this ridiculous talk of summoning demons and levitation and other nonsense! _I may be a flake, but I'm a _practical_ flake._ His philosophy, his reclusive research, hardly fit in with her own dynamic notion that everyone had the power, his Art, as potential within them. The debate had made their letters…interesting, to say the least.  
Jack quirked an eyebrow but said nothing as she exited the room. When she returned a moment later, box in hand, his smug expression blossomed into a wide grin.  
"Tarot cards?" the man inquired, amused. "Why not tea leaves--or animal entrails?"  
"Don't be crude, Jack. I don't criticize _your_ methods."  
"You _do_, as I recall." He leaned back in the chair. "With the Art, no props are required for prescience--dreams, visions, what-have-you. I had parlor tricks like this down when I was thirteen, _without_ the crutches."  
"I'm very proud. Hush and let me focus on this." Beth had performed successfully for skeptics before--it was one of the reasons why she was one of the most sought-after psychics and healers in California. Not many occultists could make a decent living off of speaking engagements and book royalties. Putting that thought behind her, Beth allowed herself to sink into that calm place below thought, where she touched that power within her, connecting her to the earth and, by extension, to all things on it. Jack was watching her very closely, eyes oddly intent on her face, as though she was doing something particularly interesting.  
Slim hands shuffled the cards with a familiar affection before passing the deck to the man opposite. "Pick ten."  
Shrugging, Jack shuffled the cards easily and counted out ten, passing them back to her. With a practiced ease, Beth dealt them out in the familiar pattern. Keen dark eyes passed quickly over the cards, noting those that stood out.  
"Well?" Jack prompted with a glint of mischief in his eyes. "When do I get my rich husband? Tall, dark, and--"  
"Hush. Right now." Against the background of his laughter, Beth squinted. "Who's the irritating young man you're competing with for the favor of the elderly father-figure? Looks like a brother to me."  
Jack stopped laughing very quickly. Beth flashed him a superior smile and pointed to the first few cards. "Here," a graceful finger pointed to the center of the pattern. "The influences on your life in the distant past--the Page of Pentacles, the devoted young student-yourself, I assume--with the Emperor, the man of learning. In your more recent past, the Knight of Swords. A demanding young man, also drawn to the Emperor."  
Jack gave a mild facial shrug, expression carefully neutral. But Beth was good at reading people, and she knew what probably lay beneath that calm surface. "The cards above represent your aspirations. The Three of Pentacles represents…craftsmanship, skill, the application of knowledge."  
A slight smile, almost one of pride, crossed Jack's features before he frowned. "There are a great many pentacles here."  
"Um, yes." Sometimes, Beth had no idea what the man could possibly be _thinking_. "The pentagram represents--"  
"I know what it means. Continue." Jack made a curt gesture with his hand. At her expression, his look softened. "Please. By all means."  
Beth shrugged; at least the man's skepticism--if not his arrogance--was on the wane. "Below is the Two of Swords. Whatever you attempted, probably with the Knight, it was _his_ project, and it did not go well at all. Craftmanship and pride led to destruction and suffering." Jack's calm actually broke in a flinch with that. "Am I wrong?"  
"I don't need to be analyzed," he muttered, "or to hear about my past. Shall we move on?"  
"As you wish." Sighing, Beth composed her thoughts, looking over the final few cards. The ones she'd skipped told her a great deal about Jack himself--but the man was remarkably closed-off to self-awareness for a psychic. That wouldn't exactly help him if he were looking to be healed. "The near future, this card," she tapped the Two of Swords, "indicates a struggle. You're struggling not only with another--for power, for control--but within yourself, challenging the way of life you've chosen and deciding between spiritual matters and the temporal ones holding you back."  
"Well, that sounded suitably vague."  
"Jack, are you not _listening_ to me?" Beth stabbed a finger down on the final card. "The farther future. The Ten of Swords. Suffering, plain and simple. You don't do anything by halves, do you? You're in great danger."  
The magician sighed, glancing away from her. "_That_ I already knew."  
"Well, may I ask why you're here? Why _here_, instead of Scotland, standing up for the Emperor against the Knight?"  
His eyes met hers reluctantly. "I wanted--_needed_ to be here."  
Beth thought that she knew, but had to ask. "Why? What's here?"  
Jack blinked. "_You_, Beth. What else?" 

"Sir?" Marcus' voice was infinitely gentle. "Master Crowley? Are you awake?"  
"Momentarily," the old man muttered groggily, shifting aching bones into a position that allowed him to lever himself out of bed. The servant hurried to his side, slipping a frail arm around his shoulders.  
_I moved the world, once_, Crowley thought irritably at Marcus, _I don't need a servant's help to get out of bed._ But he did. And he accepted it gladly. "What is it, Marcus?"  
"There's someone to see you, sir."  
Crowley arched an eyebrow at that. The trio of Masters had few visitors, and Crowley the least of all. _It's best if the world forgets us,_ he'd told the younger men, repeatedly--though he doubted they'd fully agreed with him.  
Much to Crowley's dismay, Marcus had to help him down the stairs as well. A thin elderly man awaited them in the foyer, lined face pensive. But that expression broke into a welcoming smile at the sight of his former Brother.  
"Crowley!" Michaels enthused.  
Grinning, Crowley grasped Michaels' hand. "You are a sight for sore eyes, my friend." It had been years since he'd seen any of the former Brothers. Privately, he was amazed that any of them--including himself--were still alive in this new world. Although, as linked to them as he'd been a century ago, he would have sensed if Michaels had died. "Marcus, tea for two, please."  
For all his frailty, Michaels was blunt and straightforward as they sat. "I'm worried about this Master, this _boy_, Crowley. Dracan."  
Crowley closed his eyes, exhaling a long slow sigh. "Yes."  
Piercing green eyes studied his face from within a deep web of wrinkles. "I haven't lost the Art, you know. None of us have, except for the dead ones, of course--Paraseuis, Johan, al-Razi, Gunther, Massoumi." The names, spoken together, were a blow, even though Crowley knew that those men had passed. _So many of us_. "I have felt the Art…_change_ when Dracan touches it with that accursed thing."  
"It's just a grimoire, Michaels, albeit a very powerful one. Nothing more."  
Michaels' papery lips twisted as though he was preparing to spit. "You know better, Crowley. The Art _should not change. We_ change to accommodate its ambiance." The man placed his hands reflectively on his knees--were they young, healthy men, Crowley knew, he would be pacing. Michaels had always been filled with energy--serene energy certain of his priestly calling, but energy nonetheless. "Nothing good can come of twisting, changing such powerful forces. Do any of us, after so many centuries, even _begin_ to truly understand the Art?"  
Crowley nodded reluctantly. "I agree with you, Brother." Michaels started, both at the unwarranted title and the sad, gentle tone. "Dracan has tried to do ill with his little invention. But he _is_ a Master…and, by now, he is stronger than I. He refuses my counsel."  
"You're saying that you will do nothing? That you will allow events to play themselves out? The Art does not _like_ to be changed, Crowley."  
"I know, I know." A thin, weary hand passed before his eyes. "I'm saying that I _can_ do nothing." _Other than wait, and watch, and pray. And hope that Jack will succeed where I have failed._  
Michaels nodded slowly. "All right. I won't blame you for this, Crowley. Blame is…futile, at this stage. I will pray. I know that you do not share my faith…but you should pray, too." Grimacing, he reached into his voluminous black coat. "I have something for you."  
Crowley studied the object that Michaels passed into his hands. A simple, old wooden crucifix, not much larger than the length of his hand. The barest touch sent tingles through his fingertips…the cross had been very heavily spelled with protective magic.  
"Protection," Michaels said at Crowley's inquiring look, "comes from a great many sources."  
Crowley nodded politely, pocketing the crucifix. "Perhaps my own spiritual inclinations lie in different directions…but the gift is welcome. I have a feeling that I will need all the protection I can have before the month is out." 

May, 1979  
"You are completely wrong for me," Beth informed the prone figure, absently stroking his hair.  
Jack grinned up at her, stretching his arms above his head. "You don't like one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old men?"  
"That's one of my concerns, yes. How can I _believe_ half of what you tell me? Demons, ancient conspiracies, immortal old men--"  
"We're not immortal," Jack put in quickly, "we're simply very good at being old."  
"Whatever." Beth shook her head. "What _is_ it about you?"  
"My handsome face," Jack mused philosophically, "my rugged physique, my devastating wit and charm--"  
"--your modesty--"  
"Of course." The pair looked soberly at each other for only a moment more before breaking down into laughter.  
Sighing, her hand still in his surprisingly soft brown hair, Beth leaned over, bringing her face to his. They kissed only a moment, before she drew away, exhaling again.  
_I have to say it, don't I?_ But the words were difficult for suddenly stiff lips to shape. Instead, she led up to it gently. "Can we talk about why you're still here?"  
Jack sighed, closing his eyes. "You want me to leave?" The look on his face was oddly vulnerable, as if the idiot half-believed she was kicking him out.  
"Of course not." Beth shook her head emphatically, dark hair swaying with the movement. "If it were up to me, you'd never leave. But it's been a month, Jack. We've tried healing, and it's failed, and you can't sit around teaching me the Art for the next sixty years. You need to go back to Scotland--I'd be very happy if you came back here permanently afterwards, but you can't just run from Dracan. I see your dreams, sometimes. You _need_ closure."  
Jack studied the ceiling, then sighed. "No. I've made my choice, Beth. I care for Crowley like a father…but I just don't fit into the manor anymore. Dracan is...beyond my reach, and Crowley is fading. Neither of them needs me. I've been in stasis for so long. I want to be _alive_ for a little while." His face softened at the expression of concern on hers. "I talk to Crowley most nights, with the Art. I'll know if something goes wrong. I have a few daemons--friends--still at the manor who can protect him."  
Beth opened her mouth to object, then simply sighed and returned her head to its comfortable resting place on his shoulder. She should have tried harder, the woman reflected ruefully, but she really did not want Jack to leave. Almost absently, in what had become a nightly ritual for them, both hands stole up to cup his face between them. A brief thought, a prayer breathed towards the earth in the old method, a brush of the Art in the new one Jack had brought--and energy flowed through her fingertips, swirling through Jack's body, which glowed in luminescent patterns of health and Art to her eyes.   
The man was so strong, in so many ways, and yet he considered himself so weak. Even those paralyzed areas fairly blazed with the Art and the strength of his spirit. Beth fed a few desultory breaths of healing energy into his frame. Her success was measured only in the easing of tired muscles, the smoothing of tension lines at his mouth and brow. Beneath her hand, a small bruise on his hip faded to dull yellow--Jack wasn't careful enough with the parts of his body that couldn't feel.  
Jack was quiet for a few moments before he exhaled slowly, breath ruffling her hair. "I know you can't do anything more for me," he breathed. "But sometimes…most times…I think it's enough." 

Dracan's private study within the Magisterium, always small, seemed especially cramped with all the ritual trappings he'd added. Candles blazed from every wall, and a full brazier smoked with incense at each point of the large pentagram in the center of the floor. The man himself hardly noticed, however, just as he didn't feel discomfort from his half-crouching posture. Both hands clutched the warmed, sweaty brass Star in a white-knuckled grip as the Master bent to read the lines of the ancient parchment. It was a largely unnecessary precaution--Dracan had memorized the ritual years ago, and had already triple-checked the preparations. But he was intent on his vow--this time, nothing would go wrong. He would not disgrace his title of Master.  
A near-endless stream of Latin poured from his lips, almost pulled from his mouth by the energies pouring into--and out of--the Star. Dracan, though still concentrating, took a moment to smile at his opus, his greatest achievement and most wonderful tool. He'd change the world, the Art itself, with it, and Jack and Crowley be damned if they didn't approve.  
Pulsing in time with the Star, the Art _shifted_ then, and Dracan edgily began the chant that would bring the ritual to its culmination. _This_ was the mark of Masterhood, knowing the ebbs and flows of the Art more than he knew himself, finding the perfect timing and ambiance to achieve feats young Davis would not even have expected of miracle-workers. A moment later, Dracan stopped thinking. That part of him separate from the Art, the part that was _Dracan_ alone, dissolved under the fierce rush of energies. It was more intimate, more exhilarating, than a lover's caress. Crowley and Jack had cautioned him never to sublimate his own will to the Art so fully--men had been lost that way, even Masters--but the Star kept him whole and sane.  
The spell's climax arrived so quickly it almost caught the Master by surprise. Yet the words tumbled from his lips by rote, sealing the spell. _"Arcesso, abraxas!"_  
Once again, the shimmer in the air above the pentagram coalesced, forming a thin silvery line in the air that widened quickly. Ignored, sweat poured down Dracan's face and his overused body trembled with fatigue. But his mind was intent only upon the shadow beginning to fill the cramped, warded space--a thick, impenetrable black shadow with blazing green eyes.  
_I have waited for you._ The voice was not audible, but sounded clearly inside Dracan's head. _Name me. Set me free._  
Faint warning tingled at the nape of Dracan's neck, hints of a vision received long ago. Irritably, the Master pushed aside nervousness and gazed eagerly at the submissive, powerful entity awaiting service. The thing's power, material and magical, smote him with an almost physical force. Jack and Crowley surely had never known such power…or they never would have turned away from it.  
"Tiamat," Dracan whispered hoarsely. He'd thought hard about that--a spirit's name had substantial effects upon their abilities in this world. The image of a primordial chaos-deity somehow fit this being, this roiling cloud of black smoke with its piercing eyes of flame. He used one sock-clad foot to wipe away one of the pentagram's chalk lines. "That is your name. Enter this dimension, and be welcome. We have much to do." One sweaty hand slipped into the pocket of his robe, to clutch the iron pentagram--Jack's discarded trinket--briefly. "Much indeed." 

The dreams were always the same.  
Jack shifted in his sleep, vainly trying to escape the nightmare. He only thrashed about helplessly within his tangle of blankets while Beth slumbered oblivious beside him.  
_You can't walk,_ the old man spoke gently, eyes kind in his thin face. To Jack's remembered twelve-year-old eyes, Crowley had been a god more than a father, breathing into him hope and life and purpose. _But how would you like to fly?_ And so he flew, swooping effortlessly in the body of a hawk, the manor spread out brick-red and green below him.  
Just as suddenly, the sky went dark. Crowley's face, as he remembered it over his on that London street, twisted with contempt. _Fool. Did you truly think for a moment that I would accept you as my apprentice, a Master, my equal? Pathetic little cripple!_ Dracan's voice in Crowley's mouth. Crowley, instead of stopping to save the young, untrained Jack, simply continued in stride, back to the Brotherhood. Jack was left only with a shilling in his hand and the taste of ashes in his mouth.  
_Master Crowley!  
He can't help you. You're a fool, cripple. A weakling. You always have been._ Dracan's voice again. Normally, the nightmare ended when Crowley, having judged the boy as inadequate, walked away. _I have no use for you any longer._  
Shadows surrounded him, cold hands reaching out. With a strangled cry, Jack tried to back away--but he was still twelve years old, still without the Art or even a wheelchair. _Master…help me…don't leave me like this!  
I don't intend to._ The face flickered between Dracan's and Crowley's. Fear rapidly suffused through him. _It's not a dream, oh God, it's not…_  
Beside the dark-robed dream-Crowley/real-Dracan figure, a towering mass of shadow materialized. Two pinpoints of blazing green fire seemed to pierce through him. Jack hadn't gotten a good look at the powerful entity Dracan had tried to summon last year…but once glance was enough to have burned the thing into his brain. The thing that stood before him right now.  
With a strangled yell, Jack sought the calm of the Art. Dracan was better with dreams, he knew, but he had some small skill as well. Dreams didn't even require the focusing words of spells…reality within the dream world had its own complex laws, but it was far more fluid and changeable than waking reality. With that in mind, Jack concentrated on sending himself as far away from Dracan's sick game as possible. Answers could come later, in a time when he was himself again.  
The demon-shadow thing stepped in front of him, blocking his retreat. The Art practically wept from the thing's pores; it radiated power. Jack turned to cast a betrayed look at Dracan. One could not be physically harmed in dreams, but to terrorize one's brother like this definitively crossed every line Crowley had set for his students.  
That moment of looking away, that brief moment of weakness, was all that Dracan required. The shadow stepped forward, and dark cold hands cut Jack's flimsy magical shield to ribbons, reaching through his skin to envelop him. He screamed. 


	5. Tiamat

Chapter 5: Tiamat

May, 1979

Jack started awake in a cold sweat, choking back a scream. A quick, wild-eyed glance around the room verified his safety. Moonlight filtered in dimly through the blinds, splashing silver across the double bed's quilt, across Beth's sleeping form.

For a moment, he couldn't remember why his heart hammered wildly against his ribs. Then: _Just a dream. Thank God._ Yet the fear in him still remained, a slow simmer just about to break into a rolling boil and consume him.

Jack dreamed often of his first meeting with Crowley--in these twisted visions, Crowley refused him, taunted him, left him for dead on that godforsaken street to a life without purpose or meaning. Simple insecurity, Jack had decided long ago. But this time had been different. The terror, the shadow, _Dracan_.

_That man is going to my head. He's a rogue Master, no more powerful than I, not some childhood bogeyman to fill me with terror._ Yet his hands still shook as he reached for the bedside lamp. A moment's hesitation reminded him that Beth still slept peacefully. The light might disturb her. Shrugging, Jack used his arms to roll onto his side, facing away from her. He breathed _"Illuminaris, abraxas,"_ into his cupped hands, intending to feed in only enough of the Art to create a small, dim light.

Instead, a blinding bolt of pain hit between his eyes, making him gasp and lose focus. When his head cleared, he looked sharply around the room, unsurprised at the absence of light.

That crawling fear blossomed into full-scale terror. _Something's wrong. Why can't I touch the Art?_ "_Spearca, abraxas._" It was foolish to throw an undirected flame into a carpeted room, but Jack was too panicked to care. Nothing happened, save for the same wave of pain behind his closed eyelids.

_Beth. Help me. Beth!_ Somehow, his lips didn't work.

She found him eventually in a somewhat undignified heap on the floor, having rolled off the bed in a fit of agony, clutching his head and sobbing.

-0-

Beth held him, with hands first warm and firm on his shoulders, then brushing his face and hair, until the paramedics arrived. The initial wild sobs that had awoken her had subsided to moans and twitches. The twitches were bad enough to be possible seizures, vibrating erratically through his arms and chest and face.

Beth, after she finished speaking to the 9-1-1 dispatch officer, didn't stop her stream of constant reassurance. "Jack, hang on, Jack. It's going to be okay. I'm here and you're here and we're both all right. Listen to my voice and hang on." Beth knew how to fight terror when illness was involved. She'd done healings at patients' deathbeds, to ease the pain of passing. She'd used her gifts to calm and relax rape and assault victims as they sat shaking in the ER waiting hours for a doctor. Even though she mostly dealt with chronic pain and long-term illness, she'd seen her share of blood, panic, and suffering.

But with Jack, with the man she'd only recently admitted to herself she was far too in love with for her own good, it was so different. She had to work hard to find her center this time, breathing deep to touch the earth and the Art and whatever else would help, breathing out almost visible swirls of Art and energy that sunk into Jack's prone, shaking form. The healing was erratic, not her best, and Beth had to blink back tears of frustration. _Come on, Klein, focus. You're a good healer, Jack believes you're a _great _one. P_rove_ it._

When the paramedics arrived, bursting into the bedroom, they wouldn't let her touch him. As she fretted, they pushed her into a corner of the room, going to work with a ventilator and syringe of epinephrine with a stretcher blocking most of her view of Jack's body. _No, no,_ she thought, panicked. _I need to be able to touch him, please, I need to--_

"What happened?" one of them asked crispy, drawing Beth's attention back to the newcomers.

Beth shifted uncomfortably. She felt underdressed and ill-prepared in her T-shirt and pajama pants. "I woke up when he fell out of bed. He was like this. He seemed fine when we went to sleep."

"Your husband?"

"Boyfriend." She and Jack had _never_ used that word, but the man had been staying with her for almost a month. Perhaps, Beth reflected ruefully, it was time. Time to meet her parents, time to make her own debut to the mysterious and intimidating Master Crowley. Hell, time to put his picture in her wallet and take him shopping for something other than the out-of-style rumpled suits with which he'd arrived. He had to get better, just so she could do all those things, Beth argued to the cosmos. It wasn't fair that they'd let a precious month slip by without doing those things, not if that month was all they had.

"Any health concerns we should know about?"

"He's paraplegic. His chair's there." Beth nodded to the chair on the other side of the bed.

The man nodded. "We'll bring it. You can meet us at Northwest County--"

"Please," Beth objected, panicking again. "I want to ride in the ambulance." _I couldn't bear to not be there if he…_

"We're going now. No time to get dressed."

"I don't care. I have friends who can bring me clothes."

The paramedic nodded. "All right. Let's go. Does he have any family to contact?"

Crowley would want to know…but Beth would have to handle that herself. The situation was an odd one, and Beth couldn't rule out some sort of magical attack from Dracan. Dracan did not need to be the one whom the hospital designated as the next of kin. "I'll have to get the numbers."

"Insurance?" As he spoke, the other two men were loading Jack's limp form onto the stretcher and checking the straps.

"In his wallet, here." Beth fished out the worn leather wallet, thankful that Jack lived enough in the modern world to have purchased international health insurance for himself and Crowley.

Beth followed them out of the apartment, blinking at the strident red-and-blue lights that pierced the darkness of the parking lot. It was too late for a crowd, although she was sure more than a few neighbors were peering out through their blinds. With the contrast of light and darkness, the windows were all silvery and opaque.

Beth managed to squeeze his hand as they loaded him, sending him a pulse of warmth and healing energy, but, in spite of her pleas, the paramedics shoved her into a seat at the back, across the bed from Jack, and insisted that she belt herself in. She watched as they assessed heart and breathing rate, the bluish tint of lips and fingernails. She heard the phrase "in shock" as though from a distance.

Lowering her head, she pretended to be overwhelmed with panic, but she had found her center again. Jack would _not_ die. Focusing, she drew deeply from both the earth, from the ground she felt pulsing and rolling beneath the ambulance's wheels, pushing it towards Jack, straining as she never had before for a healing. She could feel herself sinking into the Art, feel it rising to swallow her and burning through her veins instead of blood. It was an unfamiliar sensation, for all her experience with healing, and not a pleasant one, but she choked it down and focused through a sensation that was increasingly close to pain. The five-foot distance between them had never felt so far. _Please, Jack, take the healing. Take the energy. Take it in and _use_ it. I _know_ now is not your time._

Just as she'd despaired of doing the impossible, of healing without touch, she heard one paramedic break the effort-laden silence. "Breathing and pulse are up."

"BP?"

"Still low, but up."

Beth could almost feel the connection between herself and Jack now, and the healing flowed as effortlessly as any other healing, energy running like a stream between Jack and Beth. Sighing, Beth felt confident enough to risk opening her eyes.

"Ease him off the ventilator. Breathing looks good now. All right, here we are pulling up to the ER. Miss, please unbuckle and move aside so we can carry him out."

-0-

Jack opened his eyes to glaring white walls and piercing fluorescent light. Wincing he lifted a hand to shield his eyes; as the glare faded he caught sight of the sterile white room around him.

Beth was fast asleep in a chair beside the bed, his wheelchair opposite. She sighed in her sleep, frowning lightly, a wisp of dark hair falling across her face. Jack reached up to brush it aside, wincing with the effort.

"Hmmm? Oh. You're awake." A warm, dry hand brushed at his forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Decidedly odd. What happened?" His mouth was dry.

"You were having trouble breathing and I couldn't wake you up." Beth shrugged. Strain was evident in her face and the dark circles around her eyes. "The ambulance brought you to the hospital. The doctor says you had some kind of mild aneurysm…they want to do some tests, but you should be fine. At first they were afraid you'd go into arrest, but your breathing got a lot better in the ambulance."

_Fine? What happened? I can't remember…oh, God!_ Dark eyes widened, remembering the horrible moments before his collapse. _I can't touch the Art._

"What's wrong? Do you need a nurse?" Beth grabbed his hand as she watched his face drain of color. "_Talk_ to me, Jack."

Hurriedly, Jack cast himself into a meditative state as he did hundreds of times a day, reaching for the Art. It was the easiest of tasks, which he'd managed within two months of apprenticeship, and the Art had never once failed him before. He'd cast minor spells in his sleep.

Now, all that he sensed was the blinding headache that clapped him between the eyes, red starbursts behind closed lids. Jack groaned, pressing his head back against the rock-hard, sterile white pillow. Tears leaked out behind his eyelids. _This is still a nightmare. It has to be._

"Nur--"

"No!" Jack rasped. He squeezed her hand hard enough to hurt, though Beth didn't complain. His next words were a broken whisper, "Oh, my God, no. Dracan, how _could _you? Better to kill me and be done with it."

Except that not even a Master could kill with the Art. But, with the Star, Dracan could do bloody well anything else he wanted.

"Jack, you tell me what's going on right now, or--" Beth's rough voice held the edge of panic. She really did care…and that thought alone brought him back from the edge of insanity.

"The Art," the man choked, "I can't touch the Art. Dracan…I had a dream…him and that damned demon of his…they _cut me off from the Art!"_ Better to be deprived of breathing or heartbeat. The Art was a _part _of him.

"Jack." Beth's hands were an anchor on his shoulders, squeezing comfortingly, coaxing him away from the precipice. "Look at me. You're fine. The…Art isn't something someone can take away from you. You're just tired, so you can't touch…"

"Dracan _can,_" Jack shouted back at her. "He can do almost anything with that damned Star. All he'd need is something of mine…" Jack remembered, vividly, the iron pentagram, left in his dresser drawer. How many decades had he worn that against his skin, a treasured Master's graduation gift from Crowley? "My God."

"You really think he could have…_stolen_ your powers from you?" Beth regarded him with skepticism, still, but she understood how well someone could know their own Art.

"Not Dracan. That damned…_thing_ he summoned. He did it again! After knowing how dangerous it could be! I have to go--my God, I have to _warn_ Master Crowley--"

"Hey!" Now the hands were firm, pushing down against his shoulders. Jack had developed a great deal of upper body strength in his life, to compensate for his paralysis, but he willingly sank back into the hospital bed, head lolling to the side helplessly. "Look, you're still weak, whether from an aneurysm or from having your Art stolen. You _need_ to rest. How easily will Dracan win if you confront him now?"

She was right, damn her. But, instead of cursing her, Jack took one of those hands in his again, squeezing it like a lifeline. "Everything in my nightmares, Beth…it's come true. I've lost the Art…I'm no Master, not now. I'm the helpless cripple I was when Crowley found me."

"_Stop_ it, Jack." Beth grabbed his face in both of her hands and directed his tear-filled eyes at her face. "You _know_ that you're not helpless. You've got the brains to win this thing. You know that."

Slowly, Jack focused on her words. He had an obligation to fight Dracan, to save Crowley and Marcus and God knew who else and send that demon-thing back from whence it came. It didn't matter if he were injured or crippled or deprived of the Art…he still had the responsibilities of a Master. "Perhaps," he managed in a whisper, chewing over the words, "you could bring me a pen and paper?"

Beth regarded him warily, nodding reluctantly. "Okay."

Jack summoned a strained, tired smile. "I'm not going to do anything…rash. If I can't talk to Crowley in person or speak to him with the Art--" --_oh God oh God oh God--_Jack suppressed the rising panic again with a surprising flash of white-hot rage at Dracan--"then I will, I suppose, write him a letter." A bitter quirk to his lips now, Jack spread his hands. "What else can I do right now?"

-0-

Agitated, Dracan moved in a swirl of robes around his ankles, pacing the length of the small chamber. Tiamat followed in a gesture of mock-servitude, an amorphous black shape hanging off his heels like a dog. "I did _not_ tell you to do this!"

_Was it against your wishes?_ The thing never spoke aloud to him. Rather, it seemed to inject its thoughts directly into his head. Dracan had found it a sign of his power, at first, but how much of his own thoughts did the being see? How much did it really bow to him?

"Most assuredly!" He forced his lips to relax from their snarl.

_You spoke of it._

"Only as a last recourse. I have no love for Jack--" Of course not. But still, with every thought of Jack came the bitter taste of guilt in his mouth. "--but nor do I wish to torment him unnecessarily. As long as he's in America, he was no threat to us."

It had to be, Dracan reasoned, imagination, the thought of what Tiamat had done to Jack. Yes, _Dracan_ had done it, with the Star…but he'd been asleep, dreaming. The damn thing had tricked him. Even the thought of losing the Art sent edgy shudders through Dracan. Without the Art, he'd be worse than crippled--he wouldn't be alive, not by Dracan's definition of the word.

_Now he will never be a threat._ Tiamat paused, as much as a constantly moving black cloud could be said to pause. Something submissive shuddered through it. _You have my deepest apologies, Master Dracan. I act only out of desire to serve you._

And, fighting for control with his fingernails digging into his palms, Dracan forced himself to relax, to believe. "You will not do that again."

_I will not. _It paused, calculating. _You could always give him his power back._

Dracan flinched at the thought. "I'd have to do it in person." Could he face Jack again, after this? _Dear God. Crowley, Jack, help me. I've made such terrible mistakes._ But he forced his face to an impassive mask. He had no idea how Tiamat would react to doubt, and his control over the being was weak.

_You're troubled. It will pass._ Tiamat dared to float nearer, draping dark tendrils over Dracan's shoulder. The sensation was odd, a brief icy touch that left him shivering, but brought a warmth and energy flowing through his limbs. He sighed, rolling his neck back into the strange but soothing massage. The man closed his eyes as the being began to whisper, promising greatness if only he'd listen. If only he'd speak. At last, someone _listened _to him.

He barely managed to stumble to bed, with the black cloud wrapped about him like a shroud, draping itself around him like sheets and pillows. In that caricature of lovers, Master slept, and summoned demon stayed motionless, green eyes burning into the dark.

-0-

Dracan's hand slipped into the pocket of his slacks, finding the smooth, cool surface of the Star within. "I can't put it down," he mused.

_Why would you wish to?_ Tiamat was invisible even to his sense of the Art, having melded into him in the way of daemons. Its strength lay in its ability to detach and exist outside of him. _This is your power._

"I won't use it as a crutch." Still, it hurt to pry his fingers from the disc, lay the Star on his bedside table beside his journal. Dracan cocked his head, masking the pain in losing the Star with a smile. "I don't need it, do I? I have you."

_We need all the power we can. Crowley is dangerous._

"Crowley is _asleep._"Dracan forced his fingers to unclench and took a weighing step back from the nightstand. He had to avert his eyes; another look, and he'd step forward and snatch it from the table. He left tense-backed, with the Star's emanated power burning an imprint into his shoulder blades like Tiamat's gaze. He was only going into the bathroom for a shower. He didn't need the bloody Star for that.

Twenty minutes later, when he returned with wet hair and a towel around his waist, his gaze went first to the empty nightstand.

For a moment, with Tiamat stunned and smoldering inside his head, Dracan stared, motionless, at the empty place where the Star had rested. Reaching out with the Art, he sensed only Crowley's uninterrupted sleep. No trace of the Star's unique aura. No hint of anyone else with the Art, or any break in the security shield Jack had placed around the grounds decades ago. In the manor, there was only--

_"Marcus!"_ Dracan shrieked. He could, the rational part of him supposed, have teleported himself to the first floor, but there was a certain physical satisfaction in taking the stairs two at a time, feeding the adrenaline and fury peaking in his system with every thud of his feet against the steps. Besides, with red floating before his eyes, he couldn't calm himself enough for the Art. Tiamat hummed inside his head, oddly content with such a setback.

_You will retrieve the Star and kill the thief,_ Tiamat explained calmly. Dracan hoped, at least, that it was explaining itself. Not ordering.

A fellow Master, one away and harmless in America, was one thing. The servant Dracan found quaking underneath a paint-stained tarp in the kitchen pantry was entirely another. How _dare_ one such as this, ignorant of the Art, a servant, an insect, challenge his authority? Had he not suffered enough--from Jack, Crowley, the British army of his youth, the long line of self-proclaimed "gurus" he'd sought on his quest to master the Art--every one of them demanding his submission?

Now he had the means to make them pay. All of them.

_"Please!"_ When he found Marcus, the man, gray hair and all, was cowering. He was a big man, and the closet was barely large enough to hold him. Terror shone from his eyes. "Calm yourself, Master Dracan, please! Have mercy! I didn't mean to--"

Dracan's raised hand failed to stop the blubbering, so, with a mutter and a thread of Art, he tore the door from its hinges and flung it across the room to crash into the opposite wall. Marcus, his face as white as curds, flinched, and his babbling trailed off.

"Where is it, Marcus?" Dracan asked in a perfectly calm tone.

Marcus began to shudder and cry in earnest, not fooled by Dracan's self-control. "I'm sorry, sir. I can't tell you. I can't get it out again."

Dracan knew the spells to sense lies. He knew Marcus wasn't lying. "Jack," he spat. "Damn that crippled bastard. Leaving him without the Art was too good for him." He used his own physical power this time to plant a firm kick in Marcus' side. The man was twice Dracan's size, but Marcus only flinched, unresisting. "_Where is it,_ Marcus?"

"I-I don't know, sir. I gave it to the daemon. It ran away."

_The_ daemon, to the long line of manor servants, meant Ammanor. Jack's grotesque many-armed pet, who delighted in stealing and hiding shiny things--things he and Jack sometimes didn't find for years even with the Art. Jack found that amusing; Dracan had come close to killing the miserable beast on several occasions. The Star might be anywhere. Snarling, Dracan tried another kick, planting a solid blow on Marcus' head.

"Please, sir," Marcus yelped. "I only did it to protect Master Crowley. And to protect you. You're not yourself, Master Dracan. Master Jack just wanted the Star kept until you were yourself again. Please, let's go talk to Master Crowley, he'll know what to do. Oh, _God_, what the _hell_ is that?"

The last babbled sentence was panicked and high-pitched. Dracan didn't need to look over his shoulder. He could feel Tiamat detaching from him. The air behind his shoulders felt cold; the spirit had to be overlapping his body somewhat as it filled the hallway behind him.

_"Please, Master Dracan!"_

"Shut up, Marcus," Dracan interjected calmly. Tiamat swirled past him in tendrils of black smoke that grasped Marcus, lifting and pinning him against the shelves at the back of the closet. His eyes bulged, the tendrils wrapped snake-like around his mouth and throat preventing him from speaking. Those eyes begged.

Something cold and hard nudged his palm. Dracan looked down to find another of Tiamat's tendrils pressing his old British Army survival knife into his hand. Of course, the unnaturally calm part of him reasoned. He wouldn't want to spoil a ritual knife with human blood; that would render it useless, even dangerous, for most ceremonial work. How thoughtful of Tiamat to dig through his closet and find the right tool for the job. Marcus made a choked sound at the sight of the knife.

_Do it,_ Tiamat urged inside his head. _But do it slowly. Let me savor this one, Master, please._

"You want to see something amusing?" Dracan inquired, shifting the knife to his left hand. He raised his right hand to Marcus' face, drawing the man's attention back to his eyes. "Ignore my friend, here, Marcus, I've got something much more interesting for you to look at." Tracing a symbol in the air with two fingers, Dracan breathed the words of the spell and felt it take life. He didn't see a thing. But Marcus, unmoving and silenced, began to twitch and gurgle wildly, his eyes impossibly wide in a chalk-white face. Marcus could assuredly see and feel the spiders, thousands of them, crawling all over his skin, into his clothing, pressing into his mouth and eyes.

Dracan paused to savor the moment, then shifted the knife to his right hand again.

-0-

He was expecting Crowley sooner. The old man, Dracan reflected with contempt, was farther gone than he'd thought, to sleep through a display of such raw power. The wait gave Dracan enough time to change into clean clothes, dump his bloodied garb into the hamper, return the knife to his dresser, and retire to the parlor. Tiamat disposed of the blood and the body before melding into him again. What it did with them, Dracan didn't care; for all he knew, Tiamat lived off human blood.

The old man didn't surprise him, either. Dracan heard his footsteps, and the thump of his cane on the hardwood floor, from outside in the hall. His fingers, inside the pocket of his slacks, clenched on where he'd normally keep the Star. Tiamat had not sensed the Star yet; Jack probably had it stowed in some container warded against scrying and destruction.

"What you've done is unforgivable." Crowley, hovering in the doorway, sounded tired, rather than angry. When Dracan stood and turned, that ancient wise face was unbearably weary. "_Why_, Dracan?"

"All I have done is acted as a Master," Dracan snapped, standing. Suddenly, it was important for Crowley to _understand_. "A _real_ Master, one not afraid of the Art like yourself and Jack."

Crowley inhaled, studying his face carefully. "I see now. It was worse than I'd expected. You have a rider, Dracan. My God, how could you be so foolish, to call something so powerful and offer it your mind and body of your own free will? You're lost, my son."

"I'm not the one being ridden, Crowley. I'm firmly in control."

"I doubt that."

"I will not argue with you. You're done, faded, old man. Wasted talent. You killed everything alive about you a hundred and fifty years ago and your Art has atrophied as much as the cripple's legs."

"Jack is your brother, Dracan." Crowley sighed. "Your teacher. He was always so much better a teacher than I. I haven't been able to reach him; what have you done to him?"

"I have no interest in this conversation. Where is my Star, old man?"

"I have no idea. Jack had the foresight in this case. Ask him, if you haven't killed him already." Crowley paused, cocking his head. "I feel the power, the evil, in you preparing to strike, Dracan. Kill me if you will; I'll not fight you."

"You know I'm the stronger."

"Without the Star, with that _thing_ in you, perhaps, but that's not the reason. I'll not end my life trying to kill the man I took in as a son. I forged a Brotherhood against the advice of my own visions, and I'll live by that mistake. I have already fulfilled my role in trying to protect the world from the thing you've become."

"Your role--" Dracan paused, reaching out with the Art to test the air. He sensed Crowley, Tiamat, the pair of zombies he'd made on Tiamat's counsel, though, oddly, none of Jack's daemons--then it felt as though his consciousness had slammed against a brick wall. "Good God. What have you done, Crowley?"

"That demon of yours cannot leave the manor. Neither can you, or I, or--while the spell lasts--anyone who enters these grounds. Not until that _thing _is back in its own dimension. It will ride no one out into the world to prey on the innocent. The wards will see to that."

So, Dracan reflected grimly, Crowley hadn't been late at all. Just busy.

"Decrepit old fool!" Dracan snapped, as Tiamat exploded in rage inside his head.

_Kill him. Kill him! Now, kill him now, kill him NOW!_

His fingers twitched, beginning a spell, before Dracan caught himself.

Crowley watched him sadly. "It becomes more difficult, with every passing moment, to resist, does it not, Dracan? Soon you will not be able to. Soon there will be nothing left of the Dracan I knew. It is not too late to end this. We can still banish this creature with the proper--"

Tiamat exploded in a swirl of darkness from Dracan, catching the older Master in its grip and slamming him up against the wall hard enough to rattle the shelves beside them. His feet dangled, twitching slightly, a good foot above the floor. The same icy black tendrils closed over Crowley's mouth and throat. Unlike Marcus, though, Crowley never flinched. Those sad, near-black almond eyes never wavered in the gaze fixed calmly on Dracan's.

_Kill him, Master,_ Tiamat begged. _Quickly, slowly, it matters not._

"No," Dracan whispered. This was too hard. This was where he drew the line. The man had been a father to him for more than half a century. Then, stronger, "no. We can get him to break the ward, and we'll be free."

_He will not do it. We will find another way, a safer way. Kill him._

"I told you no!" Dracan snapped.

_Kill him!_ There was no mistaking that shout. It was an order.

Dracan's body jerked, his hand coming up without conscious volition to slam a fist into Crowley's abdomen. He heard a rib crack, and the old man crumpled in with an agonized groan. Dracan cracked two more hard blows into the man's side, bringing blood to Crowley's lips, before jerking back. "Stop this, Tiamat. Enough. We'll leave him." Listening to Crowley wheeze, Dracan suspected that the injuries themselves might be enough in a man so frail. He wasn't sure what to think about that.

_If you do not kill him--_

"Enough. I know."

_He is so dangerous--_

"I _know_! He is also an injured old man." Crowley was unconscious now, sagging in Tiamat's grip. "Run upstairs and fetch me something of his, something that's been against his skin. I know a way to neutralize him. We'll keep him in the cellar for a while."

Tiamat evidently knew when it had pushed Dracan too far. It obeyed meekly, leaving Dracan alone to watch Crowley's labored, agonized breathing, the man in a crumpled heap on the floor. Dracan didn't feel a damn thing.

He left Tiamat to take care of Crowley. He couldn't watch the old man lose his Art, and Tiamat be damned if that made Dracan weak in its eyes. Instead, he sauntered out to the front gates, and checked the ward. The barrier was real, harder than steel when he tried to walk through the empty air of the open gate.

Dracan shrugged. He'd find a way, he and Tiamat. He was a Master of the Art, and he had time.


	6. Sons of the Light

"What a beautiful house," Beth murmured.

"Home," Jack breathed as she pulled the van to a stop. The manor's gravel outer drive made a lazy semicircle to the iron gate, which lay invitingly open. He somehow expected the manor to look different, threatening, darker. But he'd only been gone a month, and his household daemons were evidently still at work. The trees that covered the grounds were green and verdant, the brick front clean and well-kept. "At least, it was once."

Beth's hand came to cover his where it lay on the armrest. "You're sure you want to do this?"

"I have to."

"Alone?"

"That as well. Dracan will need to be handled delicately. I need to talk to him as his brother, and as his teacher. He doesn't react well to strangers."

"He's dangerous."

"He may seem so," Jack admitted quietly. "But he's still my brother. I know that man, I know what he's capable of. Cruelty, yes, but not murder. The Dracan I know couldn't kill. I trained Dracan; I won't abandon all faith in his humanity yet."

"I'll give you ten minutes with him. Then I'm coming in."

"All right," Jack agreed, not liking that idea. Dracan didn't need to meet Beth. He didn't need any more of Jack's vulnerabilities exposed--there were too many already. But Jack knew better than to tell her _no_. One word and she'd be in there in three minutes instead. "But stay low and take care." _Beth, I should never have brought you here._ Pure selfishness had prevented him from objecting too strenuously when she announced that she was following him to Scotland. If anything happened to her because of it, he'd never forgive himself.

"I love you," she blurted.

Jack smiled sadly at her, his attention turned from his study of the house. Her dark eyes were large and very earnest. "Don't say things you can't take back, Beth."

"I'm not taking anything back. I do, you know."

"I know." He sighed. "I love you, too." He leaned close, risking a lingering kiss, before pulling away. Any more of that and he wouldn't have the strength to leave her behind. "I'm ready."

Beth stepped out of the car only to unload his wheelchair from the back of the van and help him into the seat. Jack quailed at that, though he knew better than to show it--here he was, having to lean heavily on Beth just to move half a foot into his chair. Without the Art, how would he ever handle Dracan? He forced himself not to think about it.

"All right," he murmured as Beth's protective arm slid from around his shoulders. "Get into the car. Lock the doors and leave the engine running. If you see anything strange or threatening, drive into town and find somewhere safe to wait."

"Yes." That was meek enough, but he knew she wouldn't do it. "I'm giving you ten minutes."

"I know. Everything will be all right by then." _Master Crowley will know what to do, if I can get to him._

"Love you."

"You _are_ going to regret that when this is over, Beth," Jack noted clinically.

"You're an idiot. Be careful."

"I will," he whispered, after she kissed him again. He forced himself not to look back, or watch her return to the car, once he wheeled himself past the gate. There he paused. He may not have been able to sense the Art, but the pressure against his wheels when he stopped indicated that he was resting the chair against an invisible barrier. Questing fingers, reaching back behind him, confirmed that, once he crossed into the manor grounds, a powerful ward had sealed him inside. He could come in, but not leave.

Odder and odder. What Jack found in the mailbox wasn't encouraging, either--evidently, no one had retrieved the mail in more than two weeks. The box, normally empty, was stuffed almost full. Leafing through the junk mail, Jack found his overnight-postage letter to Crowley, unopened, with the protective amulet still inside. He cast it aside with a muttered curse. So much for his warning.

Jack took the gravel drive in his chair with practiced ease and tugged the front door open a crack, barely wide enough to wheel himself inside. The foyer was deserted, lamps and fireplace unlit even though it was more night than evening. Breathing in the silence, Jack heard nothing to announce Dracan or Crowley's presence.

"Ammanor," he whispered. "Nal'chez. Desrigala. Attend me." He couldn't reach out with his mind, but his daemons should have come when called from anywhere within the grounds. None answered. Jack's lips tightened into a grimace. He truly was alone.

He'd been a fool to bring Beth here. He should have left her safe at the airport. Except that Jack knew she'd never consent to wait behind for him. He'd be lucky if, even now, she wasn't scaling the gates. The thought of that, and the urgency behind it, spurred him to wheel into the main hall, even though he suspected a trap. Even without the Art, his intuition screamed at him; something was very wrong.

As soon as the chair hit the threshold, it stopped moving. Jack couldn't feel the Art anymore, but he knew the spell, and didn't bother struggling with locked wheels and seat. A Master such as Dracan could have stopped a flying airplane with the Art, held it suspended in midair. Instead, he half-turned in the chair, preparing to face his lost brother, but the words he'd prepared slipped from his lips in a tangled jumble.

"Oh, no," emerged instead, a choked denial barely louder than a whisper. "My God. Not even _you_ could go so far, Dracan."

His fellow Master, thinner and paler than Jack remembered him a month ago, stood flanked by two men Jack sincerely wished he didn't remember. Two creatures. He'd never seen a zombie, but he was familiar with the theory and the spells. Two bodies, upright and animated, stood beside the living man.

One corpse was too fresh for the stink of death, only a day or two old, and Jack's heart tightened in grief at the sight of Marcus' pallid, frozen face and lifeless eyes. His intestines bulged from a bloodless gash that had ripped through clothing and flesh, and his eyes wept from open, red sores, as though he'd scratched and torn at the skin before death with the intention of ripping his eyeballs free from their sockets. The other zombie was almost too decayed to recognize, mostly bones wrapped in loose scraps of rotting flesh, and it filled the hall with stench. Jack, coughing despite himself, couldn't manage more than a brief glance at the half-skeletal face before looking away. Rotten or not, he recognized McClellan all too well--the sweet old man who'd seen him through his apprenticeship and decades of Masterhood, who'd been a favorite uncle and trusted friend. "Damn you."

"You don't like the new pets?" Dracan raised a languid hand to caress Marcus' limp gray hair. The zombie didn't react. "Odd. You were always so fond of the servants when they were alive."

Jack's hands fisted on the arms of his chair with the effort to remain civil. He couldn't win a fight--Dracan needed to be reasoned with. "Dracan, where is Crowley?"

Narrow-eyed, Dracan met Jack's eyes for the first time, then, measuring the other man's rumpled appearance and haggard face. "Why have you come back here, Jack? You were safe in America. You should not have come. I can't help what will happen to you now."

Jack's jaw was so tight it hurt. "I've you've harmed him, I swear--"

"What?" Dracan sneered. "What can you do to me now, _Master _Jack?" He laughed out loud, watching Jack stiffen at the name. "You're a cripple without even the Art to your name. What did you really expect to accomplish, coming here?"

Jack had to swallow before he could speak, but his voice did not waver. "Dracan, listen to me. You _must _turn back from this. It's not too late. For your soul, brother. You've killed Marcus, abused the Art and the dead, robbed me of the Art, and hurt or murdered Crowley--"

"Crowley's not dead," Dracan snapped. "Does that serve my purpose? No, it does not. I have told you that before." His gaze had turned inward, his tone almost argumentative as he scowled.

Jack nodded slowly, understanding now. "I'm not talking to Dracan, am I? You've a daemon riding you, or else something stronger than a daemon. You can fight it, Dracan. You can cast it from you. _Fight_ it."

Dracan sneered again. "Spare me, _brother._ I'm not being dominated. I'm entirely in control. What I've gained from Tiamat and from the Star is power--something you'd never understand."

"Power is different from this," Jack replied quietly. "This--what you've done--is pure evil, Dracan. Fight it. Turn from it now. You're a Master of the Art, brother. You don't need crutches like this to know power. For the sake of what we share--"

A curt gesture from Dracan sent the fresher zombie lumbering forward. Jack cut himself off, flinching despite his iron control, but the zombie Marcus merely grabbed the wheelchair by both handles and shoved, tilting the chair. Caught off-guard, Jack tumbled from the chair into an undignified heap on the floor.

"Enough," Dracan said. "Can it be _Jack_ speaking to me of power? How would you know, _brother?_ You've always despised me--always been jealous. You've never had power, cripple, and you have less now without the Art. Were you a real Master, I'd never have been able to take it from you." He grimaced, his tone growing in volume. "You claim kinship with me only because you have no way of defeating me. You're _afraid_ of me, just like Crowley grew afraid of me and tried to seal us within the manor, tried to take the Star from me through this fool." Dracan aimed a kick at Marcus' backside, which the zombie ignored.

_Forgive me, Marcus. I should never have asked that of you. Your death is on my hands as much as Dracan's._ "I am not afraid." Sprawled on the floor, Jack still met Dracan's gaze firmly and kept his tone level, calm. "Not of you. Crowley and I _trained_ you, Dracan. We made you a Master. I did not come to beg or trick you. I came to bring you back from the abyss because you are still my brother. Turn back before this…_thing _takes control of you completely."

Dracan snorted. "Here's a sight--the great all-knowing Master who has to crawl on his belly. No," he reflected, "you can't even crawl now, can you, Jack?" At his gesture, Marcus lumbered to his side, dragging the chair with him. Dracan rested a reflective hand on the wheelchair's backrest. "Now I have two things of yours--the Art, and the chair. The two things that made Jack No-Name more than a worthless invalid." He paused, then, his face assuming the careful vacuity of someone looking through the Art instead of through his eyes. A slow, thin smile spread across his face. "Or do I have three things?"

Jack routinely set wards around the manor's walls to warn him when someone entered. He'd taught Dracan to do the same long ago. Dracan had sensed him enter, and now he sensed…_Oh, God._ Jack hadn't abandoned dignity when dumped onto the floor in a puddle, but he abandoned in now. "Dracan, listen to me. She's _not _involved in this. I beg you, brother--leave her be."

Dracan grinned down at him. "Now the _Master_ changes his tone."

Jack's sudden terror didn't allow him time to be offended. "Do whatever you will with me. You know I won't--can't--resist like this. But don't hurt her. Please."

The other man laughed out loud--a sound Jack hadn't heard in years, and one that sent chills up his spine now. "This new side of you is quite amusing, brother, but it grows repetitive. You may disguise it as begging for the little whore's life, but you're _still_ telling me what to do. As though you have the right to still call yourself a Master." Turning away, Dracan waved a hand at the zombies. "You know what to do with him. Keep him alive for now."

_"Dracan!"_ Jack shouted, too focused to even flinch at the feel of stiff, cold hands grabbing his arms. McClellan lifted one arm, Marcus the other, leaving him dangling between them with his knees bumping on the floorboards. "For God's sake, _listen to me! Please!"_ _Oh, damn it. Damn it all to hell, you idiot. How _dare_ you bring her here? How dare you hand her to this madman?_ "She's nothing to you! You have me!"

The hands were like iron bands on his upper arms, rendering struggles useless--who knew that corpses could be so strong?--and Dracan had already strode away, ignoring the shouting at his back. As they dragged him off towards the stairs, Jack risked filling his lungs with air and shouting as loud as he could. "_Beth! _Beth, _run! Run!"_

-0-

Once she was alone in the car with her thoughts, Beth found it impossible to wait. She flipped on the radio, but her gaze never wavered from where the mansion's double doors were visible through the gates. After five minutes of foot-tapping, fidgety agony, Beth turned off the engine, unlocked the car, and stepped out into the gathering evening.

She knew better than to enter through the front door. If Jack was in trouble, she'd only make things worse. Instead, she skirted the brick wall circling the grounds, watching for uneven spots that would make the wall easier to scale.

Aided by adrenaline, she was over the wall and standing on the soft grass inside within thirty seconds. Beth took only a moment to take in her surroundings--noting the greenhouse, ritual building, and small chapel Jack had described to her in such vivid, loving detail. Her gaze went quickly to the house--and to the one obvious back door.

Beth crossed the damp grass and cobbled pathways at a dead, crouching run, expecting invisible demonic creatures to swoop down on her with every step. She was breathing hard once she reached the second-story overhang over the door, but a smile of relief crossed her face before she remembered what awaited her inside.

To her surprise, the door was unlocked. She slipped in quietly, wincing at the sound of the door closing behind her. The room inside was stuffy and too cold. It was some sort of trophy room, Beth realized, squinting around. In the half-gloom, the old mounted animal heads and stuffed parts seemed imbued with a kind of eerie life, locked into half-living snarls.

_Stop it,_ she chided herself. _This is scary enough without your imagination taking control. Find Jack and we'll get out of here._ Choosing doors at random, Beth wound her way into what had to be the dining room, a huge chamber with some of the most beautiful antique furniture she'd ever seen, if she hadn't been too distracted to notice. Still on tiptoes, she was considering her choice of three doors when she heard Jack scream her name.

She would have been the first to admit her hard-headedness, but when _Jack_ yelled at her to run in that tone, she listened. Jack, she'd learned, was a man of self-control and inner strength, the result of decades of quiet self-discipline and mastery of a life-changing disability. She'd never seen or heard him lose control or demonstrate anything resembling real fear. What she heard in his voice then was pure terror, and it wasn't fear for himself.

Beth bolted, ducking into what she assumed was a den or game room of some sort. Her fingers had barely closed on the next doorknob when the other door into the room opened and a thin stranger stepped through.

They stared at each other for a moment, with Beth too curious to be afraid. This man--she assumed it was the one gone bad, Dracan, since he didn't match Jack's reverential description of Crowley--wasn't physically intimidating. He was short, very thin, and sallow, with black hair lank around his shoulders and shabby clothing twenty years out of style that also looked as though it had been slept in for weeks. Then his eyes locked on hers and, in that burning, wholly inhuman gaze, Beth saw something to intimidate her.

She'd begun to back away, keeping Dracan in view, when the zombies stepped into the room behind him. Beth made a strangled noise in her throat, too shocked to scream, as the creatures lumbered in, dragging heavy limbs and rotting flesh and the stink of the grave. _No,_ she argued with her eyes, _this can't be what you're seeing. This isn't possible. Those men are obviously dead._

The small part of her brain that was rational realized then that, even though she loved Jack, trusted him implicitly, she really until this moment hadn't _believed_ half of what he'd told her about the Art. She believed now.

"Bring her here," Dracan commanded, his voice breaking into the silence. His voice was warm, almost friendly, deeper and more vibrant than his bony thinness suggested. The fresher zombie's first step forward broke Beth's frozen panic, and she turned, yanking hard on the doorknob. The door that had opened to let her in thirty seconds ago now refused to budge.

"The house obeys its Masters," Dracan observed in an entirely rational and conversational tone, "not nosy trespassers. You must be Beth Klein."

Beth pressed her back against the door, edging away from the zombies. She knew she was backing herself into a corner, but she couldn't help herself. The sight of the dead, staggering things, things that couldn't by any laws of logic or nature _be_, scared the hell out of her. But, somehow, she summoned her voice, which barely even cracked. "You must be Dracan." She didn't even care how he knew her name. She wanted _out._

He snorted, still seeming more cat-and-mouse amused than insane. "I'm not surprised Jack's mentioned me. He'd blame every injustice in the world on me, if he could."

The mention of Jack's name brought a little more of her strength back from her. The zombies were too close, but Beth forced her gaze squarely on Dracan's face. She was too frightened to breathe, but she kept her spine straight and her voice calm. "Where is Jack? What have you done with him?" Her next sound, a squeak of terror, spoiled her tone as one zombie shuffled forward and grabbed her arm, yanking her forward until she was toe-to-toe with Dracan.

Up close, the insanity in the man's eyes was clear, and repellent. "Brave," he murmured. "Are you so sure you want to take that tone with a Master of the Art?" At a lifted finger from him, the zombie's grip tightened, dead cold fingers digging in tight enough to her upper arm to hurt.

Beth gritted her teeth and focused. "I know one Master of the Art who's taken a lot worse from you."

Dracan snorted. "Loyal to the end," he noted. "Perhaps you two could share a cell. You could bask in the _power_ of that Master, lying broken and helpless on the floor, and the two of you could die together. Yes," he cocked his head, nodding, and Beth couldn't shake the feeling that he spoke to someone other than her now. "That is indeed an excellent idea." He jerked his head towards Beth. "Her too."

This time, Beth did scream--an involuntary sound of terror--when the zombie grabbed her, but it ended in a rasp as the thing grasped her, one hand yanking her hair, the other bruisingly tight about her throat, and half-dragged, half-propelled her towards the door.

"Sweet dreams," Dracan noted calmly. He considered his invisible companion again. "Yes, love, she _will_ make a lovely zombie. We will make sure to kill her in a manner that leaves no marks."

Beth kicked at the zombie--which had the feel of kicking moldy cheese, and the same effect--before the grip on her throat was enough to leave her concerned with nothing but struggling to breathe. With no other options, she stumbled forward.

-0-

The prospect of their deaths--of lives that had spanned centuries coming to an end--left the two other Masters introspective. Jack had rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. He'd never thought of the cellar, with its bare stone walls and earth floors, to be good for anything but keeping cheese and vegetables before the advent of refrigerators. There were the barred cells, of course, but that had been from ages ago, before Crowley had risen to power in the Brotherhood, where Master had fought Master for control of the ancient world.

The Brotherhood had ended that, created peace and cooperation among Masters that allowed technology to flourish into what it had become today. Jack lay on his back, thinking back to how he'd done so as a teenager, lying on the grassy hill of the manor staring up at the stars and wondering about the mysteries of the Art, before he had the power to explore it himself. He'd never lost that sense of wonder, and he struggled to hold it now, as the last two Masters faced the true end of the Brotherhood.

"I thought in the same manner before we formed the Brotherhood," Crowley whispered. The old man's voice was hoarse and strained. Jack knew he was hurt, even though the old Master pretended otherwise, but Jack couldn't get into the next cell to help. He couldn't even get to the door. He wondered if Dracan had even locked his cell. "I looked up into the night sky and I wondered if our foolish pride and rivalries would rip the world apart. I was only a boy then, barely a Master, fresh from a far-off land. I decided to cast my lot with those seeking alliance over war and vowed that I would never cause such chaos again."

"You have not, Master," Jack whispered back. "You ended it. We might die, but Dracan and that thing will rot out the rest of their days here. The world is safe."

"We can but hope," Crowley sighed. "In this sort of situation, certain things must be said, mustn't they? Powerful last words, promises of affection from father to son, vows for what we might do in the next lifetime. Words fail me. I should have died years ago--centuries ago. Even I know this."

"You have never held back those words, Master." Jack struggled to keep his voice even. He didn't give into helpless emotions--had he, he would have laid down and died long before meeting Crowley. But, under the circumstances, it was difficult to hold back tears. He wondered why he did. "Father."

"Do not let them do it, my son," Crowley whispered, fainter now. "Do not let him take your soul and twist you into one of those _things_. You are a true Master, regardless of what happened to the Art, and you can still fight it."

Jack nodded, but kept his darkest suspicions to himself. Dracan doubtlessly knew he could make Jack do anything now that he held Beth. He might ask for his soul. He might give Jack back the Art and ask for his Star.

Could he break the ward with the Star? Jack wondered. It was possible. He sweated already, weighing the options. It was a terrible choice. Kill Beth, or possibly kill untold thousands of people. He was afraid he already knew the answer.

"Master Crowley," he said, "we do have a dilemma."

"Miss Klein is here," Crowley replied, startling Jack. From Crowley's recognition of her, Jack knew that the old Master knew much more about Jack's personal life than he'd let on. He had always been one for privacy. "I heard the commotion below." He exhaled again, low and sad. "Bear me no hatred, Jack. I banished the daemons. The Star is hidden in a place neither you or I know and sealed from the Art. Only the one who forged the ward can break it. Forgive me, Jack--I will not do it."

"I understand," Jack whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. He knew what had to happen just as Crowley did--this was a true demon, a thing that fed off pain, suffering, and death. The modern world would stand no chance against it if Dracan were so easily consumed. Knowing the evil inside Dracan, it was easy to predict what would come next. Jack could only hope that Dracan's impatience and fear would force him to kill them quickly.

Beth was going to die. Crowley would let her die. Jack drew a deep, shaky breath, brushing away the tears that fell now. He had no choice.

Jack heard the thump of the zombies returning, and steeled himself for the inevitable. But, instead, they walked past him, and the door to the next cell creaked open. There was a thump, and the creak of the door closing and locking, and they were gone again.

Ragged sounds came from the next cell--deep, raspy breaths alternating with the hacking cough of someone with a bruised throat. Then there was a deep breath and a murmur that sounded like "Oh, God."

Jack's heart leaped in his chest. "Beth!" he hissed.

"Jack?" He could hear Beth shift. "Is that really you? Where are you?"

"The cell on your right. Follow my voice."

"I thought you were dead," Beth rasped, "I thought he would have killed you. Oh, here's the wall."

"I'm on the other side. Move your hand to the vent on the lower right corner of the wall."

"Jack--" Her voice was still too hoarse and raspy; it sounded painful.

"Here. Shh." Jack managed to push several of his fingers through the slats of the vent. Beth jumped, emitting a startled sound, when his fingertips brushed hers, then pressed her own hand against his fingers. "It's all right. It will be all right. Just breathe. Are you hurt."

"No…no," Beth rasped. "A couple of bruises on my throat, I think. Are you hurt?"

"Just my pride." Jack sighed, closing his eyes, but did not take his hand away. "Beth, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You should never have come here. I shouldn't have let you."

"I made my choice. You did all you could to keep me safe. It's my responsibility." Beth drew a deep, shaky breath. "God, I'm terrified. I'm trying not to show it--"

"It's all right. We're all afraid."

"Those things he had with him…"

"Zombies. Two men who used to work here. One of them Dracan killed."

"Oh, God…"

"I won't let him hurt you, Beth." But he knew that was hollow, and so did Beth.

Instead, she chose another tactic. "Who's we?"

He had to backtrack through their conversation a moment to remember what she meant. "Master Crowley is in the cell on my other side. He's hurt. Can you--"

"I have to be able to touch him, Jack. Or see him at the very least."

"There is no need." Crowley's voice came wearily from the other side. "I am all right for now. Good evening, Miss Klein. I have been most eager to meet you. I apologize for the situation of this meeting."

Incredibly, Jack could hear the smile in her voice. She was so much braver than him. "Hello, Mr. Crowley."

Abruptly, the idea came to Jack. It was so simple, so unlikely yet so possible, that Jack's breath caught in his throat. He approached it in a roundabout way, too frightened by the possibility of hope to voice it yet. "Beth…did Dracan do anything to you?"

"Do anything?" she repeated, suspicious. "Well, he set that giant dead thing on me."

"Besides that." Jack spoke more quickly now, rolling onto his side to face Beth even though the light was too poor to see anything. "Take anything personal of yours, use any spells you could sense?"

"No," she said slowly. Jack heard a soft, surprised sound from Crowley as the other Master realized his gist.

"Risky," was his only, quiet comment.

"Beth…listen to me. Dracan has taken the Art from Crowley and myself, but _you_ still have it. He probably did not even bother feeling for it in you. You can help us."

"What? Wait, Jack," Beth spluttered. "I can't do anything with the Art. I can't light a _candle_, for God's sake! You want me to take on that wild-eyed wizard and the zombies?"

"No." Jack shook his head. "I just want you to open the door." He rolled right over Beth's next splutter of protest. "I can walk you through it."

"I won't leave you," she snapped.

He smiled sadly in the dark. "Were that an option, I would beg you to do it. But all of us are sealed up inside the manor. Our only option is to get that thing away from Dracan."

"You have a plan?" she asked, the barest touch of hope returning to her voice.

"I may. I am not yet sure."

"All right," Beth sighed in response. "Anything is better than sitting here waiting to die."


End file.
